Hi! Introduce yourselves here. :: New to the site

[coramy]

Hi everyone!!! we are new to the site, so i thought we would take a minute and introduce ourself. We live in Southern Ontario, Canada, and our turtles name is Charlie( our daughter named her) and yes she is a female the turtle that is lol, and is just under three years old. Her shell is roughly 12" long and about 10 1/2 " wide, i think she is pretty much full grown now.....we hope lol.
When we first started thinking about buying her, we wanted to do alot a reserch first, which we did both online and by reading books, but nothing really gets you ready like the real thing. I hate to say it but we are kinda still learning as we go, thats why i am so gratful for websites this this one, this site has given us so much get advice and ideas so far. Anyways i wont ramble on too much lol , so if anyone has any great tips or just wants to swap stories feel free to drop us a line. Oh i will try to post some pics of her tank and the new platform i just finished building for her.

[steve]

Looks like you're off to a great start, better than most of us in the beginning. I really like the basking platform, what material is it? And does water drain through it?

I noticed your girl has some retained scutes and is in the process of shedding. She'll look great after a good shed. Keep an eye out for the scutes that shed, she might try to eat them and take note of the shell underneath. A problem with retained scutes is that they take a long time to shed, which gives gunk time to build up and gather underneath.

[coramy]

Hi Steve! thanks for the advice on her scutes, i was wondering if she might try to eat them once they fell off. We try to give her shell a gentle scrub when we do water changes. The basking platform is made out of a old under gravel filtration system, one piece is for the landing and i cut a piece down to make the the ramp, and added some non skid tape for grip. It took her a little more then a week to get use to it and actually climb up onto, but once she did i was very happy and my hard work had payed off lol. I will try to add some more pics of the platform, to give you a better look.

[steve]

Not all RES would eat them, but some do. Have you noticed a lot of water underneath the larger scutes? The platform came out nice, good job

[coramy]

sorry Steve i forgot to answer a question u asked eariler about the platform, yes there are holes in it and water does drain through it. Not sure if u can tell in the pics but i also put acrylic all around the platform, i jusat hope i made it long enough on the sides so she doesnt try to climb out.
I havnt noticed any water under the larger scutes, what does that mean if there was?? Thanks i put alot of thought in the platform for her, i'm happy she is using it now lol.

[steve]

Water under the scutes means that it is shedding, however retained scutes make the process more difficult. It takes much longer to shed and it's not translucent. So the longer it takes, the more chances crud can build up underneath and since it's not as clear before, you can't see if anything is happening underneath.