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I'm new to turtles, (I'm waiting for my 2 new ones this week), but my tank setup is an altered version of my old paludarium.

I have gravel in there, 2 different sizes....

I understand that turtles can swallow this stuff, and if they do, it can obviously cause digestive problems, but...

Are there no gravel-sized rocks in their natural habitats?
Do they never come into contact with small rocks in the wild?

I don't think so...

Is there some other factor that would cause them to eat gravel... poor diet, bored, etc..

my tank is filled with guppies and sword tails, i think my little turtles will be too busy chasing them to want to eat rocks.

What do you guys think?

Are there no gravel-sized rocks in their natural habitats? Of course there are!
Do they never come into contact with small rocks in the wild? Of course they do!

The answer to both of these questions is really this; there are plenty of dangers naturally occurring in the wild, from predators to things like gravel and rocks. When keeping animals in captivity, we have the advantage of choosing the type of habitat they will live in. This gives us the ability to minimize any possible dangers they may encounter. Basically, it is our responsibility as good caretakers that we make the environment as safe as possible. Remove any inedible/unsafe material that they may possibly ingest that may or may not cause problems.

I kept gravel in my tank for a bit. My res always had fish, plants, eachother, tons of distractions. I read about the dangers of gravel and promptly removed it, even tho I'd never seen them show any interest in eating it. I replaced the gravel with large river rocks and every other day for at least a month I'd be fishing out more gravel that they had passed. Years later, I had to place them both in boarding for a few days while I moved. There was gravel in the tank but I didn't see the need to remove it as they'd only be there a couple of days. Afterwards, I was fishing out more gravel that they had passed.

Long story short (probably too late for that); better safe than sorry!

i agree with everything jenaero said. how would you feel if your turtle died because they ingested gravel? its a shame when people just think it wont happen to my turtle or the gravel just looks so nice so they keep it there and their turtle ends up passing and they "have no idea why" its just better to be safe than sorry

thanks for in input, i've had almost every other type of pet, just never turtles.

i've always taken a 'as natural as possible' approach when creating my pet's environments.

I just got the 2 little guys last night and they already seem to love their tank.

one more question.. i have several pieces of natural wood in my tank, i'm afraid they might wedge themselves under part of it and drown...

Is there any chance of these guys trapping themselves and drowning?

Drowning does happen. Make sure any open spaces are large enough for them to maneuver in and out of safely.

Ok, thanks for the insight, they seem to have the will/mentality to move forward only, not to back out if in a 'tight' situation.

despite their strength for their size, i dont think either of these turtles could move the wood if they pushed hard enough

River rocks, and the large rocks and large seashells you can get at the local beach (soak them overnight in a bleach solution heavily dilluted with water, then soak them in straight water for 24 hours until they no longer smell like bleach) look much better than gravel, in my opinion. I got these large, thick, glass, rock discs at the dollar store in multiple colors that my turtles can move around as they wish, and they are perfectly safe.

I'm sure in the wild turtles may eat gravel occasionally as a digestive tool, however, in captivity, for some reason they tend to eat gravel too much. I think sometimes they accidentally eat gravel when they are searching for food scraps. But, what makes being a turtle parent great is, you can protect your turtle from the life threatening elements they encounter in the wild the same way you would protect your human child.

My RES, Trevor, is 17 years old (he'll be 18 in March) and up until I found this forum last September, he has had gravel in his tank. I didn't know any better- it's what he always had and thank god I never had any problems. I was mortified to read on here of turtles dying and the danger that gravel really causes... well, no sooner had I read a couple of posts on here to my husband then we were emptying the tank and scooping out all the gravel. I still remained skeptical...I mean, I'm his MOM..I'd have known if he was eating gravel right?

With nothing in the bottom of the tank, sure enough... gravel started appearing again, from Trevor passing it. He had been eating it all along (and luckily by now he's a larger turtle, about 9 inches in length) and we were scooping it out piece by piece for about 3 months.

Now there is sand in the bottom of his aquarium... and both Trevor and myself like it much better.

As the other poster said- better safe than sorry.

like everyone already said, gravel is one of those i wouldn't take the chance type thing. If you wanted a more natural aquarium i'd say try sand, I have it in mine and my turtle goes nuts with it. She spends so much time digging around in it looking for buried treasure i'm not sure she'd know what to do if she didn't have it anymore lol.