General Care Discussion :: New turtle Owner !

[ads11]

Hey guys how are you all doing.

A year ago i got a RES as a present from my friend, and i have been taking care of this cool pet ever since.

This is the picture of my turtle. I was wondering what you guys think, does the shell look healthy to you ?



He is in a 30 gallon tank at the moment but i plan on upgrading pretty soon to something much larger, then hopefully building him a pond in the spring.

[Love of Animals]

His shell has a lot of retained scutes. It should be fairly smooth. Does he have a basking light and a UVB light? What is his diet like? If you're upgrading try for 10 gallons of water per inch of shell and a filter that's rated for 2 - 3 times the amount of water in the tank. Filter ratings are for fish not turtles and turtles are messier. Let's get his habitat, lighting and diet correct and he'll probably loose some of those scutes. His shell will take a long time to get normal and then still probably not be completely normal.

[ads11]

I have a 26watt 5.0 uvb light with a basking uva bulb as well. (does uva need to be replaced every year like uvb?)

His diet mainly consists of the flukers buffet blend. I feed him usually everyday.

My filter is for 50 gallons but my tank is 30 gallons. It is pretty clean, i have the gravel vacuum and i do that a couple of times a week and change out half of the water at least.

I also have a cleaning fish and some neon tetras and regular tetras, so that would notice f something is wrong with the water if they started dying.

Also, i do not have the uvb light pointed on his basking spot, it is in the center of the aquarium getting a good radius on anything.

Should i change this ?

[steve]

Love of Animals is spot on. What's the rest of the tank like? What's her diet like?

[ads11]

i will take some more pictures tommorow, the tank is pretty clean.

But right now i still feed her ( i didn't know if it was him or her until now hahah ) the buffet, i need some suggestions on what to start giving her to diversify the diet.

[Miss Tee]

OI was told that UVB rays can't penetrate water, so to focus the bulb on the basking area. And even though it still lights up, the UVB part is exhausted after 6 months.

[ads11]

this is how his basking area looks like

[sflemin2]

basking area looks good. How big is it? It looks big enough fo us to help you find out if its a boy or girl . Do you have regular turtle food? You should only feed him/her every other day (except some veggies). Once you correct the diet, the shell will slowly fix itself

[ads11]

is it bad that she is that big for being one year old ??

[sflemin2]

I very highly doubt she is only a year. How big was she when you got her? They arent suppose to sell turtles that are under 4" and 4" turtles are not babies Here was my (illegal now) babies 10 years ago (please excuse my pigtails and purple nail polish.. I was like 14 lol). They were babies.. as you can see, there is no way they could get that big in just one year. Have you measured her? Maybe I am completely misjudging the size by the pic.

[ads11]

I have gotten her last july from an asian festival.

I will show you a video of how big they just where. Luckily i recorded a video hahah . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SDoazWg ... ideo_title

I use to have two, but one died unexpectedly =(

I think mine grew so much because i did not know you should feed them a quantity of pellets the size of their head, and every other day.

[hill]

ads11 - You should stick to the rules of the turtle road. Your turtle need at least 10 gallons per inch of water volume aquarium. The filter should pump at least 5 times the water volume in the tank. Your turtle seems ot have a pyrimiding problem which can be caused by over feeding. He is of the size that feeding every other is fine. A balanced diet of a good pellet food with added calcium will be good. Your water temp should be around 75 to 78 degrees and the basking area should be around 90 to 91 degrees with uvb lighting. These are my ideas and some other keepers should or will chime in -- Hill