redearslider.com

hello and its been a while since ive visited or posted but lately, my turtle has been sleeping so much more. hes usually very active, but during the day, he goes on the basking dock and just sleeps there all day. i also noticed his red ears have darken and began to get black spots as if he was getting old. im keeping a close eye on him but everything seems to check out with him being healthy and okay but its brings concern to me. ill get pictures from my iphone if i can. i haven't aged him either i cant tell how old he is at all. hes just sleeping way more than he used to before thats all i know. and he gets VERY comfortable doing so.

Sounds like he is becoming melanistic. My male RES is also acting a bit weird, mainly sleeping on the basking dock overnight. Everything else is pretty normal though, so I wouldn't worry about it much.

Thanks so much steve. and id believe that would be the case too. he seems happy still and sleeping more. i call him grandpa now. he barely slept before and now hes on the basking dock just laying there or underwater sleeping

Yea, I agree on the melanistic part too. Its really common for older male res to turn melanistic, lucky in my opinion. I find melanistic res to be really interesting looking. If hes eating alright and he is also sleeping underwater sounds fine to me too.

i like the new color. ill try and get pictures. hes definitely got darker and older

I have a 2+ year old RES which was introduced to a week old baby snapping turtle this past September. So far the snapper is now twice the size of the RES. My RES is now doing exactly as described in the posts above. Eats - then sleeps. Either 1/2 on the pad, on the pad or under water. Sometimes I've caught him/her on the rock with the head hung over into the water. It's as if it's either afraid of the snapper - which has shown NO signs of aggression as of yet, or it's doing this melanistic stage. Is it uncommon for it to do this at such a younger age? It also grows VERY slow - it's maybe 150% larger then when it was a new baby. Eats a lot at times - never basked very much in the early months-year.

Also - come spring I plan to donate the young snapper to a Reptile house at a local college for their students who are in the animal/reptile fields to learn and care of it. It's really neat - but growing way to fast compared to the RES. If I had a pond @ my house I'd just put it in that.

Melanism doesn't really change behavior, I think in the OP's situation, it was more of a coincidence. What's your water temperature like?

I doubt it is age. There are people who own really old turtles (30+ years), mine is in the mid 20's and there hasn't been a change in behavior.

Post up your water params and temps. Maybe a photo of your set up will help too.