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Hello ~ I bought 2 RES turtles at a swapmeet today and put them in a 10 gallon tank with a medium size zoo med floating dock. After about an hour of basking the other turtle seems to be attacking the other turtle. They are both half dollar coin sizes. It happened 3 times so far. Once the bully pushes the other turtle off the dock. 2: When the other turtle was eating a pellet the bully jumped off the dock and kepted snapping at the turtle. 3rd time both were underwater and the bully kepted swimming/snapping after the other turtle. I seperated them right now but is it cruel to have them live seperately or is this normal RES behavior?? They both came together in plastic aquarium with a plastic plam tree in the middle of it.

It's not cruel to separate them. In fact, a lot of us have to separate our turtles, though they are usually a few years old. Males can be very aggressive and almost always require separation.

You might have to re-home one or more of them. Keep in mind they each require about 10 gallons of water per inch of shell length. So a 10" female should be in a 100 gallon tank.

I have 2 turtles (one res, one boxie) that will never get along with anyone or anything in their space. Some animals, like some people, are just jerks and there's nothing you can do about it. Yours might improve if given more space but don't count on it. He sounds a bit too aggressive to really fix, so be prepared to separate them if one starts to suffer.

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