Habitat - Indoor :: runaway turtle!!

[ladybug02124]

so..... I have a not so funny story to share.
I can home a few days and the turtle tank was out of order, I thought my little guys were chasing their feeder fish. I saw Tina swimming and assumed Ike was under the cave. BUT..............
when I went to the bathroom, I found Ike sleeping next to my toilet snuggled on the rug. I was nervous that he was hurt because they are in a 55gallon tank that is at least 4 feet off the ground, but he is fine luckily.

Has anyone else had run away turtles??

[Raphulk]

haha........same thing happened to me about 3 weeks ago.

another time i had him in a feeding tub on the floor, and then he got out and hid so well that it took me 15 minutes to find him.

[Daniel3507]

ive always been afraid of that. i went ahead and built a wall around his basking platform so he cant get out

[ladybug02124]

I was so surprised , I jumped off the toilet, then tapped his shell to make sure he would he responsive.


How long can they survive out of water??

[Raphulk]

i have no idea.
but i have seen my turtle bask for quite a long time.

[mat012]

That sounds like something a turtle named Ike would do - run away and leave poor ole Tina to take care of the house!

Glad hes ok

[untsmurf]

Mikey climbed out of his tank while I was at work. He was in a 55 gallon tank on top of a desk. He fell roughly five feet, then crawled under my bed. He crawled over all the luggage until he was in the middle of everything. I came home and checked on him to find that he was missing. Then I went and interrogated all my roommates (at the time, I was living with three guys). None of them knew what happened to Mikey. So I tore my room apart, then pulled everything out from under my bed. When I found him, he just looked up at me like "what took you so long?"

After that, I stopped filling his tank up past 3/4 full. Then I was able to build a wall around the basking area so I could fill the tank up.

[BullDog]

Little bugger! Good thing you found him!

Ralph has a couple good runaway stories...

The first one happened when he was probably about 2". I had 2 turtles at the time, and I built them an "outdoor pen" with popsicle sticks, complete with popsicle lid. I watched them for a while, then put the lid on and went about my business. A little while later, I lifted the lid, and only Super was there! We searched everywhere! Under every bush, tree, shrub. In BOTH neighbours yard... Everywhere. This was in the heat of summer, so I was pretty concerned (and really upset, as I recall). We kept looking all week, and couldn't find him, and we pretty much gave up hope...
Well, two weeks later my dad was under the house changing the air filter. Shadow, our dog at the time was running around there (like the numbskull he was) with him. He disappeared for a moment, then came back to my dad with something in his mouth. He was getting ready to sit down and have a good chew. What was it? It was Ralph!!! Dehydrated, but alive. We put him in a shallow pan with warm water, and he drank and drank and drank. After a while, maybe a week, he was back to his old self and we put him back in with Supe.

That wasn't his last daring escape!
One day, I came home to find only Supe in the tank. I was pretty sure he couldn't have gotten out of my room, so I closed the door, and searched the room. Didn't find him, but I knew he'd show up. A week later, Shadow was in the house, and sniffing sniffing sniffing around the dining room cabinet. We grabbed the flash light, and there's Ralph, wedged in the 1" space between the wall and the cabinet, right in the middle! To get there, first was the 2 foot fall from the tank to the couch, then another foot to the floor. Then he had to go out the door, do a hairpin turn to go down the flight of 16 stairs, another hairpin turn, down the hallway, through the kitchen, into the dining room, and then wiggle himself 3 feet through a 1" space.

Needless to say, I learned my lesson from that. I kept a rock on the tank lid from then on.
He hasn't escaped since, even with a new tank. Hopefully he's not plotting his next grand adventure...

[untsmurf]

WOWOWOWOWOW!!!! I can't believe your turtle went that far in the house. That's crazy.

[Boogerbutt02]

no worries, they can be out of water for atleast 12 hours with out any problem....

[threshold]

poppy got out of her tank awhile ago and made it to under the house...now our house you cant get under...so after finding hey by sheer luck by looking in a hole we have in our bathroom to reach the pipes...we ripped up the carpet and skill sawed a hole in the floor then we realized we were about to cut a support beam...so we ripped up more carpet and cut another hole in the floor to rescue her...the things we do for our turts lol.

[LorJ]

Sneaky little things eh? Guess I better come up with a good non-escape plan.

[zoologist]

torti has gotten out three times.

once she got out and went into my brother's room, next to mine.
then she got out and crawled to the bathroom and hid behind the door. the bathroom is in my room, not too far of a walk.
the third time she crawled all the way across the hall, missed the steps and went straight into my step mom's office. My brother found her when he went to use her computer.

she's a sneaky girl, but she hardly ever tries to get out.

[LeslieMW]

my cosmo has gotten out before when i was giving him a salt bath, but luckily he left a nice trail of water for me to find him under my bed!

[xfueledbykatie]

one of my turtles kept getting out...he'd lodge himself between the wall and the minifridge we keep his food in x]
i'm still trying to figure out how he managed to do it.
lol gotta love turtles :]