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Hi, I am new to the site, and from what I've been reading, I'm apparently not taking good care of my turtles and am a little worried. I've been seeing all these posts were you guys are feeding your turtles all different kinds of foods, and I feed mine pellets only. Is that harming them? Can someone help me learn what kinds of other foods I should be feeding them, how often, and how to give it to them? I feel like such a horrible "parent" since it seems like I'm not giving them everything they need. Jesse and James are 6 years old RES. James' shell is about 5 in and Jesse is about 7 in and I have them in a 55-gal tank.

Pellets should be their staple, but you can try different brands for variety and then introduce different items. This section will cover all the basics http://www.redearslider.com/index_nutrition.html and check out the "add your feeding list" topic, it has some great ideas in it

With your 55 gallon tank do your turtles seem comfortable? I have two baby RES turtles, and I was thinking that would be a good size but everything I read tells me differently! I think that 150 gallon tank would be plenty of room...

foreveryoung2010 wrote:With your 55 gallon tank do your turtles seem comfortable? I have two baby RES turtles, and I was thinking that would be a good size but everything I read tells me differently! I think that 150 gallon tank would be plenty of room...

55g is too small for 2 adult turtles. Actually 55g is too small for just 1 adult turtle. Rule of thumb is 10 gallons per inch of shell so a fully grown male RES would need 70-90 gallons and female even more. My male has a 120 gallon all to himself.

How fast do they grow? If I got a forty gallon container for them how long would that last for? They are small, like two inches.

Well, I don't know what you would consider fast... my turtle was already an adult when I got him, but a friend bought a baby RES that was about an inch big and she grew to be over 4 inches in about a year.

Oh ok, so that is slower than what I thought!