General Care Discussion :: weird behavior?

[alanna338]

I have three turtles right now and for some reason two of the turtles have starting digging up every fake plant in the tank. I will re-burry the plants every time they dig them up and maybe two minutes later they will go back to trying to dig them up again. Is this normal behavior? Should I take out all of the plants? It's driving me nuts. I even have this rock cave thing in the cage and I stick the plants between the cave and the wall of the cage very tightly and they are still trying to dig up those plants! What is wrong with my turtles?

[RunninWideOpen]

haha, sorry, but that sounds pretty normal to me. my two do the same thing!

i don't try to bury them anymore. partly becase i took out all the gravel and small rock because it can kill them, and my new big rocks aren't much good for burying anything, and partly because there was no point. the plants just get dug up anyway.

my fake plants have a plastic base on the bottom with an opening on the top, so what i did is put a rock on each side of the base and that keeps the plant on the bottom of the tank. so the turtles just push the plants around and redecorate however they like now.

[kikicool]

Yep, my guys hat their thermometer. No matter where I put it, I find it on the bottom of the tank. Also the fake plants with suctions on the walls? They take them down, too. They're redecorating!

[SpotsMama]

Typical turtles! Always redecorating!

I did kind of like tohmit. For the decorations that Spot liked to knock over (ie, all of them) I glued them to river rocks with aquarium silicon to give them weight and wide bases. As with tomit's turtle, he still pushes them around but he can't tump them over!

It sounds like you may have gravel in your tank. Did you know it is dangerous? Some turtles on here have died from eating it. Just want to be sure you know in case you've got gravel. I think lots of pet shops kind of push the gravel in the turtle tanks, not knowing how dangerous it is.

[RunninWideOpen]

I think pet shops just don't care. I went in and told my pet shop that my turtle had been pooping out their blue rocks for days after I bought her, and they didn't really seem to care. The lady just said, "Ha, dumb turtle".

I no longer listen to any advice from my pet store.