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Hello there. My name is Michael and I'm new to this forum. Getting the turtle setup ready, but still deciding on turtle. I have a 50 gal breeder and and XP3 filter and was wondering if I should put some fish in there before the turtle to get the bacteria going well there.

You really don't need to "cycle" the tank before you put the turtles in.

Cool. Then I guess it all comes down to me finally deciding which turtle to get. Oy... seems like such a hard decision to me.

Hope this helps:
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Articl ... turtle.htm

HA! yeah I was actually reading this as I typed the previous responce:) This is certainly a site not for the inofmation shy person! Covers everything.

You know... had a question.... a reptile dealer here who has a lot of RES that I visited yesterday told me something. Well some of his RES was VERY bright green and some were not. They were all babies. He had some adults too who were not greenish, but more drab brown/black.... said they were RES too. Could these bright green RES be Cumberlands? Do they loose there color as they get older? I also saw this cute cooter, which I loosly mentioned that I read it will get around 15 inches and he told me that the most it will get was 8 to 9 inches..... is this a selling ploy to get people to buy these guys? I thought for sure cooters get on the large side?

The hatchlings could have been a hybrid. All the cooters I've read about get quite large.

RESs shells do change colour as they age... If you browse the photos, you'll see that an older RES's shell can range from yellowish-brown to black