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My turtle is a baby. About 1 1/2 inches or so. Anyway, he's generally very calm, but right now he's freaking out. I've seen him do this once before, a while back, and I picked him up and put him on the basking platform and he calmed down.

So, it looks like he's trying to swim up the side of the tank, and he looks frantic. I just turned the lights off a second ago, and he started doing it. At first, it looked like he was trying to climb up the wrong side of the basking platform, but then he goes all over the place. He finally gets on the platform, but then he jumped back down and started doing it again.

Is this regular behavior? I'm kinda worried.

From the sounds of it, it seems like typical turtle begging. Is it the front of the tank ? Does he follow your hand? If so, that's what my guess is that he's doing.

it's begging like crazy. mine do it a lot. Shawn whenever i come close with the food, especially crickets. Diesel.. well anytime i put her in her tank she splashes like crazy exactly as your describing. she calms down as soon as i take her out

I wouldnt worry too much about it.. eventually it's gotta tire out and just stop

Sometimes the turtles just have their moods.

It could be begging. But then, I caught my Tanner doing repeated "dives" off of his basking area. He dove about 5 times before he got bored. It was so funny to watch!

My turtle goes crazy at the side of the tank all the time for no reason- I saw a video recently where someone taped 2 of their RES turtles doing it- but at the back of the tank not the front like mine does when he's begging! Leo will do it when I turn the light off sometimes as well because the sudden change from light to dark spooks him a bit...atleast that was my logic for it!