Hi, my name is Scott and I recently got back into keeping turtles. I have a pond outside and had koi and goldfish in for about 6 years until earlier in the summer. I came back from a weekend of camping and all the fish were dead and I still don't know why it happened. Once I got it cleaned out and everything I was still upset that all the koi I've had for years were gone just like that. So I though about starting over with all new fish and realized it would cost a fortune to get anything close to the sizes of my old fish. Later that day I went on craigslist and saw someone had a 7 year old RES that needed a new home. I replayed to the ad and after a few days of talking to the people who had it they felt confortable to give the turtle to me. When they gave me the turtle they said it was female but when I got on this site and looked I saw she was clearly a male.
Once I set up my pond for the best possible environment for turtles I found another RES and adopted it over a month later. And again the people I got it from this time said it was male when first glance it was clearly female. At first the RES seemed horribly and I didn't know what was wrong with its shell. It turns out they over fed her and only had a 60w bulb for basking. From what I read I guess her shell is pyramiding due to over feeding. I didn't know if it would be a problem putting them together but after a week or so the male RES(named Omen) stopped trying to mate with the new female. I didn't remember the name her previous owners gave her but it wasn't a girls name so I've been calling her Sun.
Well once I got those two all set up and living outside I went to a reptile show and got some baby turtles from a breeder there. He had several non-native species of turtles and I got 2 Rio Grande RES and a Mississippi Map turtle. I was pretty excited to have small turtles again and now I have them in a plastic container till I get my 30 gallon set up. So far I haven't really named them, I've just been calling them Yellow(yellow RES), Lime(the greener RES), and Mud(map). When they get bigger and I find names that work better I'll give it to them. They spend most of their day basking and eating the leaves I put in the tank. But I'm happy to be taking care of turtles again and enjoy the site so far!
..I love the pond, we are gonna be building one for Herbert and Bonnie when we buy our house...Welcome 
