Of the original two turtles (gender unknown - to small for identification) Shecky is strong and appears as of now to be the tank leader. It has gotten the much bigger turtle to back down and leave its brood mate alone. The other Shelly, though larger seems to be the bottom of the totem pole in the tank - and I believe that it may have something to do with its health. Its colour is bright, there is no order, and it doesn't seem to be in pain, yet its shell is rather soft. Since its the bottom of the totem poll I pull it out during feedings to a separate container so it does not have to compete for food and calcium, and it receives a few hours (over the span of the day of course) of forced basking. Its so cute though watching Shecky chase the other two turtles away from Shelly, and when they basking, Shelly will always go to the corner, with Shecky standing guard. My wife nicknamed them the twins, and they sure act like it.
Next there is Squirt, a very small turtle that we received from a friend for Christmas. At the time it was the size of a quarter, it isn't much bigger now, but it is by far the most agressive of all the turtles (it used to bite Shelly's legs until Shecky became protective) and will attack the decorations in the tank. I have not heard of a turtle that will swim into a log, and go at it like it were a large fish. When its in a more docile state, it spends its time swimming after the last turtle mimicking every move to the smallest detail.
Lastly there is Atlas, the turtle we rescued from a kid who was going to release here into the park as a "New Year's Present". I believe that she may have gone through some serious neglect at the hands of her previous owner. She runs and hides at the site of humans, doesn't swim very much - pretty much just hovers along the bottum and climbs a piece of driftwood to get to the surface, and has some doming of the shell with retained plates. To help her along - and the young ones, we have been letting our hands sit in the water so they can get used to us - we don't want to pull them to much to scare them. We figure its better to go into their world for a bit, than force them into ours. We get curious looks and eventually a playful poke, so they are all getting there (which is good, since i have a 2 year old that is dying to kiss them all
)As of now we have the twins, the bully and the coward all in the same little home. And am enjoying greatly the unfolding of this soap.
