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Honestly, the whole gravel eating situation i think depends on the turtle. I saw Lois(my female RES) eat one piece of gravel. Now she'll never eat it again, i watch her eat and she carefully pics apart the gravel from the food with her hands(she is a smart turtle! ) Also if a piece of gravel does go in her mouth she drops it...So i think gravel eating depends on the turt...I may be wrong though

It isn't something that I personally would want to risk. It can be a huge vet bill if the turt ever changes her mind. One that can easily be avoided.

And besides the fact that your turtle may (and probably will) ingest it gravel helps deteriorate your water quality by trapping and holding debris at the bottom of your tank. It is much, much easier to clean a tank without gravel at the bottom.

It's not possible to judge if a turtle will never eat gravel again but you can always remove that option. If you don't see your turtle eat gravel, they could just be distracted by your presence or other food.

My RES will occasionally change preferences as to what he likes to eat. Sometimes he wouldn't touch veggies, sometimes he won't want pellets. They are a bit unpredictable.

I'm unclear as to how you can be so certain your turtle will never eat gravel again. If it's a choice between gravel and food (or even poop), the latter will win out. But if there's only gravel and your turtle is hungry, bored, whatever, then if you've seen your turtle eat it once, I'm willing to bet at some point she'll do it again.

I'd still take out the gravel. And I agree you don't have to throw it away--I'd use it to root aquatic plants in their own tank (to later feed to your turtle).

So, what do you all use for the bottom of the tank? Larger rocks or do you just leave it plain?

I have a handful of large river rock in the bottom of mine, just enough for him to push around if he wants to. Some leave it completely bare, some have enough river rock to just barely cover the bottom.

I have a dozen or more large river rocks. Not enough to cover the bottom and trap waste but enough for the turtle to decorate her home. She likes moving them around.

I do the same as Spookster. I also like to make 2 or 3 piles and the turts like to dig through that.

I see this kind of arguement in the bearded dragon forums that my gf and I are in too. Lots of people there like to use sand saying "my beardie hasn't eaten the sand so I think its just fine. It's just a matter of preference."

I have to go with 'it's better to be safe than sorry'. I wouldn't want my little guys eating something that would harm them just because I thought they wouldn't eat it

Turtle-Turtle wrote:So, what do you all use for the bottom of the tank? Larger rocks or do you just leave it plain?

I just leave it plain. Rocks attract dirt & algae for some reason. Plus, I hate lugging large rocks in/out of the tank & scrubbing them. My turtle is fully grown (11 inch shell) & I like to give her as much room in the tank as possible.

If you don't like the bare-bottom look, you could also put some aquarium background/contact paper, whatever, under the tank so that the bottom doesn't look completely bare.

i have some aquarium rocks as well that are pretty small....after reading this i think i'll be taking mine out soon...and maybe try to find some large river rock

For anyone else who may not believe us when we say get rid of the gravel read this thread:

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4416