Other Turtle Discussion :: turtle mating dance

[crocs27]

My Male is never leaving my female turtle alone. He is obsessed with flickering his claws in her face. He is about 5.5 in long and she is about 4" long. He never has bitten her or anything but i kinda have the feeling it territorial even though they are in a 125 long gallon tank. Thing is, he didn't do it at all when they were in the 50 gallon tank. What gives. The reason i think it's territorial is because while i was cleaning my 2" turts tank, i let him swim around a little bit in the big tank just for 15 mins or so. Well rocky went straight for him to show him his big claws. I immediately took the smaller one out. I guess my question is....is it ok for him to constantly do this? And does he know that the other turts aren't sexually mature yet?

[marisa]

How long have they been in the 125-gallon tank? Were they put in together from the 50-gallon tank?

I'm not sure what gives. I don't think a 5.5-inch male who's sexually mature gives a hoot about whether or not another turtle is, if that's why he's doing the fluttering. The 125-gallon sounds OK for size. What else do you have in it? Constant harassment will cause stress (on the old forum it got so bad for one member's female that the two had to spend much of the time separated). Are there places the female can go to to get away from the male? You might have another tank (the 50-gallon, perhaps?) where you could put him for a bit when you catch him bothering her (kind of a time out to let him cool off) and see how that works (no guarantees) for a while at least. It would also be good to have objects in the tank to break up their sight lines so they're not always looking at each other.

[crocs27]

Well there isn't too many things inside the tank except for all the required things needed (heater/filter/etc...) She does have a floating log that she's small enough to fit in the the bigger male can't. She goes in there a lot. (probobly to get away from him) What kind of things would be good to break up sight lines?