First pics of Tiny, my turtle! - Paw Talk

dappledoxie · #1 02-22-2004, 08:19 PM

Heeeere's Tiny!

He's a yellow bellied slider.

Gecko · #2 02-22-2004, 09:04 PM

ooooooooooooooo how cute!! I saw a bunch of baby turtles at a pet store this weekend they are soo cute....I want one!!!!

dappledoxie · #3 02-22-2004, 09:06 PM

Yeah, Tiny is a neat fellow. I'll be standing in my bedroom and I'll look over at him and he'll have his head real far up looking at me. lol

Gecko · #4 02-22-2004, 09:07 PM

lol....awwww how sweet!!!

capnsweets · #5 02-22-2004, 09:18 PM

He is adorable. Ray really wants a turtle!

RSbunny · #6 02-22-2004, 09:49 PM

aww how adorable! you have to be licensed to own a turtle in aus...are they hard to look after?

dappledoxie · #7 02-22-2004, 09:51 PM

Tiny isn't, I just clean his water often and feed him the reptile sticks my friend gave me for him. I don't know if there's more to it than that or not.

RSbunny · #8 02-22-2004, 10:01 PM

ok cool!

Lizgirl · #9 02-22-2004, 10:50 PM

I love turtles. I just don't have the time to clean a tank as often as needed. Maybe when Thomas is older.

Ravnos · #10 02-23-2004, 12:50 AM

There are many great quality filters on the market now that can manage to limit your turtle tank cleaning to every couple of weeks. Adult sliders can hit a foot shell length, and require a hundred gallon pond to be comfortable, so having a good powerful filter is a big plus. I have a yearling slider and a yearling cooter in a 50 gallon with a cannister filter drawing through an undergravel setup, it basically lets me go about a month between water changes.

Most turtles are not hard to care for if you set them up right with basking lamps, and UV lights over a tank with adequate filtration. Diet is made fairly simple with many commercial foods on the market and can be supplimented with insects and worms. The main issue is just their adult size. Australia has some really cool species, like snake neck turtles which turn up in the US pet trade every now and then. Weird looking creatures.

Dd, cute little guy - now is the time to start planning ahead.

Rav

dappledoxie · #11 02-23-2004, 06:49 PM

Wow Ravnos!

Tell me more of what my Tiny needs, I have no way for that large of a tank but I do have room for a small one. More, more, hehehe

**kittygurl823** · #12 02-23-2004, 07:02 PM

Tiny is so cute!!!!!!

Ravnos · #13 02-24-2004, 03:02 PM

He will probably do just fine in a 20 gallon long tank for about a year or so. I generally make the water about as twice as deep as the turtle is long. I use cork bark floating on the surface for a land area for smaller turtles, and when they get bigger (and sink the cork bark with their weight) go to something secured from the bottom of the tank - usually cork bark sitting on a couple bricks or one of those commercially made turtle ramps. The land area needs to be big enough for him to get up and completely out of the water. Having space for him to wander around is not a bad idea. Many people recommend at least 1/3 of the tank size. By the time he is adult size though, he is going to require a lot of space. They are pretty active animals. Those plastic pond liners that Home Depot sells are cheaper alternatives to huge aquariums.

For filtration I have an under gravel flter, hooked to a Magnum filter. Small round river rocks along the bottom. I used to use large limestone rocks to decorate/give texture but they raised the pH too much, so just use some store-bought fish tank decorations or ironwood from a fish store and some fake plants for greenery.

Proper lighting is absolutely vital, basking turtles like sliders need UV light - without it they cannot synthesize calcium and will not grow properly. This generally means a fluorescent tube light, designed for reptiles - not one for plants or aquariums as they give off different spectrums. Also, basking turtles need a heat lamp - which I just use normal household bulbs in a metal hood fixture. They make bulbs that do both heat and UV, but are pretty expensive. I've used them with my iguanas, but not my turtles. They get very hot, and need to be carefully monitored. The basking spot should be around 90 degrees or so. I let the rest of the turtle tank sit at room temperature.

Diet, I vary with about 10 different brands of turtle pellets, shrimp, earth worms, blood worms, feeder fish, crickets, meal worms, wax worms... whatever I have laying around. Much of the literature says that sliders get more vegetarian as they get older, but I haven't noticed such a trend myself. Though, most turtle pellets are primarily vegetable matter anyway.

Anything I'm forgetting? Turtles can be time consuming to setup properly initially, but it gets to be pretty easy once all the fundamentals are taken care of.

Rav

dappledoxie · #14 02-24-2004, 04:48 PM

Great advice! I will begin doing some of those things soon, slowly but surely. As for water depth Tiny only has two fully formed legs, the other two are very "nubby" so to say. He has been like this since I got him from my friends? Is water depth a big issue b/c of this or do you know what could've caused this to happen at all, the old owner told me it just happend so he did used to have fully formed legs. I have always kept the water level just deep enough to cover him a bit so he could fully submerge but he has places to go to get out of the water totally if he chooses. He gets around really well though. Thanks again Ravnos!

Ravnos · #15 02-24-2004, 05:59 PM

That condition could be due to a number of things, a little turtle can easily be suseptible to a bacterial infection from dirty/neglected tank water - or he may have been gnawed on by a cage mate, its hard to say, but he definitely is a special case. I wouldn't put him in water deeper than he can lift his head out of unless you are sure he is going to be able to swim strongly. I've seen many turtles with missing limbs, while the ones I see are usually only missing one limb, it doesn't seem to really phase them in a bit and they learn to compensate and can swim well enough.

Rav