General Care Discussion

steve wrote:Plastic tub or cardboard box with towel is fine. Why is he going to Petsmart?

Sand shouldn't affect the filter too much. The jello shot thread has info on the recipe and how to make them.

He is going to Petsmart for feeder fish and the sunlight on the way, lol... plus I want to show him off. I love the little rascal.

fed him some swiss chard the other day and he ate it slow but sure. Now for his weekly live prey.

Jello shots.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17486

I wouldn't use a screen for the turtle tank. Get a clip on piece for your lamp. This will discourage that cat from climbing up there too. It's common sense to make the turtles tank look and feel like it's natural habitat, even with a few feeder fish in there. Dirt, sand, rocks, fake plants. The turtle knows how to live.

Just keep track of it's diet.

Yeah nothing discourages my cat. She has fallen in the tank three times that I know of and still tries to get up there, don't have the option of just going and getting a clip on part... once again, I have to watch my pennies. So we are stuck with the half screen for a bit.
Working on a slow change to his tank, don't want to take away everything at once cause I know he seems to get hissy when I take his stuff out of his tank.
Time for Biscuit to go outside...

Okay, so towel in bottom of tub makes the sides short enough to climb, not gonna do that again! Newspaper, right? Found a uvb bulb I can afford so going to get that next paycheck, got rid of gravel, put in a few rocks (even though Petsmart lady said nothing is best).
Thinking about underwater turtle grass, any thoughts on this?
lady (petsmart) says they like caves, stuff they can wedge themselves into. Figure with my luck that is not a good idea, I don't want him to get stuck. I will check out the habitat forum, but has anyone had kuck with underwater caves?
Oh, also he was acting funny, almost like he was humping one of the rocks, is that normal?
thanks again for the help.

Don't know about caves but I have a large rock that's sitting on two more rocks kinda like a cave and they hide under it a lot.I would say never listen to anyone that works at pet smart or Petco. No on grass. Sand is the way to go!!

I understand why you say sand, but because my filter is a cheap submersible one, ( I already have plans to try and get a better one), I just don't know how to go about it, how would I put it in, clean the tank, etc. I feel like such an idiot sometimes, I swear. Would I drain the tank? What do I do?

P.s. even plastic grass? Plants?

I guess you might wait till you get a different filter. You can add fake plants rocks etc. I would stay away from fake grass because it would trap to much debris. I guess that depends on what kind of grass your talking about.

They do like hiding spaces, but yes it needs to be large enough for them maneuver completely around. When they were moved to a larger tank, their resin basking area serve as a cave now.

As far as I know, when you clean the sand, you just skim the surface. I know one person uses fake grass and it looks pretty nice, but I imagine cleaning might be a bit more work.

Cleaning sand is real easy. You will need a siphon. You can watch vids on how to clean sand on you tube. I have sand in both my tanks.

He did that humping thing again, I call it humping cause he kinda rocks back and forth on his tail on the rock and then rotates around it while balancing on top, is that normal? Is he just marking his territory?

I think in the past a few mentioned their turtles had favorite rocks and would flutter at them. Maybe this is a variation?

I just don't know, he only does it around me and my husband, no strangers allowed

I got my sand at a pool supply store. I asked for pool filter sand. The stuff was somewhere around $15 for a 100lb bag. I only used half of the bag in my 55 gallon tank. Put the sand in first, then re-fill it with water. You don't even have to wash the pool filter sand. It's so heavy that the turtle poop just rolls around on top of the sand until it goes into the filter. When you first put it in, it will look a little cloudy, but won't hurt for your turtle to be in there. Cloudiness will go away within a couple days. This may be a big change, but RES are pretty hearty and Biscuit will do fine. He'll also love digging around in the sand. It's better than a marble!

General Care Discussion :: Am I doing this right? or overfeeding my turtle...

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