Hi! Introduce yourselves here. :: Happy Birthday!!

[LeenVic06]

Hey All,

My six year old son just received a RES for his birthday, which means mom (Me) just got one too! Not a problem, it will be a great leaning experience for both of us and my eight year old daughter wants to be a zoo vet, so she will get a little experience in this field also. I am sure I will have lots of questions for everyone!

To start, we are a little broke as of late, so just wondering if it is ok to keep "Lisa" (pretty sure she is a girl) in a 10 gallon tank set up for a few months til we can afford to get her something bigger. She is at least 4-5 inches. I do not want to cause any undue stress but, until we can afford a proper habitat for her that is proper that is all we can do.

Thanks, in advance for any help

Lee and Victor.

[VeipaCray]

Welcome to the forum!

The 10 gallon tank is quite a bit small for a turtle that size and you'll have a very difficult time keeping the water clean and the environment healthy. For a cheap alternative in the mean time.... a rubbermaid (or similar brand) plastic tub from your local hardware store or home store will provide a much greater amount of water (and swim space) for very little money. You may even already have one that you can re-purpose

[LeenVic06]

Thanks!! I do have a 35 gallon tub. How do we keep the water warm though? This might only be a problem until this weekend, going to rob Peter to pay Paul so we can get, as I have now been informed, Shelly a proper set up. We do have a desk lamp that is very, very warm that we have been using as a basking light until proper lighting can be provided, but that does not keep the water warm. We have radiant heat in our house so we are able to keep her on the radiator and that has been doing a pretty good job keeping the water temp up.

Thanks,

Lee and Victor

[VeipaCray]

You'll need a submersible aquarium heater to keep the water around 77 degrees.

As for your lighting, you'll actually need two lamps. One for heat & UVA and one for UVB. The heat+UVA lamp can be a standard incandescent light bulb. The UVB lamp is a special bulb from the petstore in the reptile section. One of the CFL (twisty style bulbs) that is UVB 5.0 is needed for your turtle. Both lamps should be pointed over the basking area. Many people use the cheap hardware store silver clamp lights for these light fixtures. You don't need to pay petstore price for the light fixture itself. The UVB bulb... yes sorry.

The basking area can be a simple rock or log or something that sticks up out of the water where the turtle can crawl on and get completely out of the water.

This might be a good read for you... http://www.redearslider.com/index_basic_care.html