Urgent Care :: HELP! My RES got out of his tank!

[Soulvoid]

Ok, I have a 4-5in RES and he got out of his tank. It sits about 4 feet off the ground. The tank is in my bed room and its on the top floor, I've looked everywhere and can't find him. There is no way he could have gotten outside, and my girlfriend heard a loud thud about an hour ago, but didn't think any thing of it.

Any tips on helping find him would be great. I put a bunch of paper plates out with food on them next to sausers of water, hoping he will make some noise.

And how long would he beable to survive out of his tank, my house is always around 70-71 degrees, so it's not extremely cold.

[steve]

He will likely be in dark, tight places. Block off as much as you can. If you don't have rugs or carpet, you could be able to hear him.

http://redearslider.com/lost_turtle.html

If you can't find him overnight, then have a basking lamp setup on the floor just before dawn. Perhaps the warmth and light will attract him.

[Soulvoid]

Well, have have carpets in most of the house. My girlfriend also said he might have fallen down the stairs, but she isn't sure, they have carpet on them so he didn't hit very hard if he did, and he is very healthy. What would be the odds that his shell cracked or he got hurt internally?

[Soulvoid]

And I put the light in my kitchen, I'll leave it on all night and hopefully he will go to it. I'm gonna check every 15 mins or so, because it's not like I'm gonna sleep till I find him

[steve]

He's probably OK, but they can be very hard to find. It is possible he went down the stairs too and they can move fast as well.

[Soulvoid]

Well we have baseboard heat, so I turned the heat up to 75 and hopefully he hid up against one of them for heat while he was sleeping.

[Soulvoid]

I FOUND HIM!! He made it all the way down to the basement. We have a wood burner and he was curled up in a blanket next to it. Thank you for all the help ))) now off to the hardware store for more chicken wire

[steve]

Great news! He'll probably need a through rinsing or a good soak before you place him back into the tank (to clean him off as much as possible).

[SEG 79]

To all you tutle fans out there, hear is an amazing story. We lost our RES on December 28th, 2011 and never found. I had set her on the kitchen floor and then she disappeared. Well, yesterday January 22nd, we heard scraching noises from the bottem of a cabnet. I pulled a piece of wood from a lower cabnet and found her still alive. She had crawed into a hole that I was unaware of between the cabnet and wall and was unable to get out. She had no food or water for 4 weeks, yet she was alive-severely dehydrated and dirty. I placed her back in some water and in less than an hour she had started walking around again and looking better. Only 24 hours later, she is swimming around the tank just as if nothing had happened. Unbelievable, I guess nature is a lot stronger than we think.

If anyone has any comments or advice, just post them.

[steve]

I'm glad you found her! I would soak her in diluted pedialyte and don't feed her too much right away. Let her slowly get used to things the way they were before.