General Care Discussion :: Petco RES.. Does he look healthy?

[Nikki M]

Back story: We got hatching turtles online and from day one you could tell they were not doing good.. vet said they had failure to thrive and 2 died within a week, the other I will be surprised and joyous if he makes it much longer.. So I decided to get one a little older and from a pet store since right now I am leery of buying online again.. I tried looking at all of them to make sure we got a healthy one, but wanted to get your guys opinions as I am still inexperienced with seeing the small signs. And I believe he is a boy, but could someone confirm this please.

If he is not healthy, I can take him back and get a different one. So please let me know if you see anything.. He's swimming all over the place, so that is a good sign to me lol unlike the hatching, they just basked non stop. Excuse his water, for some reason when I transferred everything to the bigger tank this morning, the filter stopped working.. So I am in the process of trying to figure out why on one tank it worked and now won't.

Also is there a way to guesstimate his age.. His carapace is exactly 4" not sure if he was fed fast to grow quicky or not, not sure how to tell that. According to the Petco girl, they get them from Concordia Turtle Farm. Anyone know about them?

Sorry if some of the pictures are fuzzy, he would not cooperate, and actually hissed at me lol little spunky!

[devilduck]

Definitively a male turtle. The shell appears healthy but he appears to have been overfed and has the signs of fast growth, the sawtooth like back part of the shell. This should correct itself with a more varied diet and a few sheds.

Can you post up some pictures of your tank setup and filter?

[ataraxiamb]

When I went and checked out the RES at Petco, they were 6"-7". I asked the guy working there how old they were and he said, "Six to twelve months." !!!!

So Petco definitely overfeeds so they can get them on the market sooner and past the 4" law. No way to guess the age that I know of.

[Nikki M]

Thank you Devilduck. I thought he was a male, but just wanted confirmation, the regular reptile lady at Petco was off yesterday so the girl that was helping me didn't know diddly. I am going to go and buy a new filter for him tomorrow.. For some reason when you connect the straight hose to the filter it will not suck, but when you connect the bent one it sucks just fine, but then I would have to add more water and it wouldn't me much area for basking. So just easier to buy a new one at this point and get one that is going to be good. He is in a 20 gallon aquarium with about 12 inches of water, then the rest basking area.. His lamps are about 5 inches from the top of the tank, so about a foot away from his basking area. He will get a bigger tank soon, we have a 55 gallon, but right now its being used for a ball python we are "babysitting"... but she should be leaving in about a week.

Ataraxiamb - I measured him yesterday and his carapace was 4".. the reptile girl at Petco said she just got these guys in about 2 weeks ago and they were between 3 and 4 years old. But I don't know if she even knows.. Guess I'll never know lol