Habitat - Indoor :: confused

[judemiller1]

I have had a RES for two months. She was vigorous and ate well--but only dried shrimp and lately she is very listless, won't eat and only basks.

By reading through some of the topics I think her tank is too small and the water is not warm enough.

I have a UVA light over her basking area and a UVB/UVA light over the entire rest of the tank.

I don't know what size heater to buy.
I don't know what size tank to buy.
I don't know why she won't eat.

I am just really scared right now that there is something very wrong with her--although when I put her in her feeding tub this morning, while I cleaned her tank--she was swimming all around--but not eating.

I need any and all suggestions anyone can give me.

I have her in a 5 gallon tank--filled half way with water. She has a 2 inch shell.
Thank you.

[Turtle_Turtle]

you should get a 20 gal tank or larger because the rule is 10 gal per inch or turtle. remember bigger is better

[oobie58]

Get a thermometer and see what the water temp is. 78-80 degrees F for hatchlings and 75-78 degrees F for adults.

[megcornell]

A good guess is that she won't eat due to her habitat. With so little water it's very hard to keep a constant temperature which is important for RES health. You should buy the largest tank you can afford. This cuts down on expensive upgrades in the future. As for heaters, the boxes they come in tell you the gallons they are made for-- go by that scale. Once she gets settled in the new tank watch for further signs of illness-- open mouth breathing, uneven swimming, lethargy. If these symptoms show it's time to start looking for a herp vet in your area.

[oobie58]

Question
hi i have 2 baby red eared sliders in a pretty small tank. I dont think I can get them a bigger tank anytime soon but about their diet. They are NO eating AT ALL the pellets that i give them. People keep telling me to give then like fish and worms so i gave them some raw fishs but they won't eat them! And i don't know where to buy the fish and worms specially for turtles so please help.

Answer
Turtles don't eat when they are stressed. They are stressed by small tanks and cool temps (75-80F is good.)

You can set them up in something cheap and easy for most of the day, then use the tiny bowl to show them off when you are home. Most of us use Rubbermaid-type totes for our tanks to provide at least 10 gallons of swimming space per inch of turtle shell length. This way, you can get a 30-40 gallon tote for only a few bucks and set it up as a nice turtle habitat.

You don't need anything on the bottom- and it is easier to clean that way. You should have a good water filter about 2-3 times stronger than a fish tank that size would be.

You'll need to heat the tank. A simple thermostatic submersible heater (ideally with a heater guard) will do it.

Lighting is actually the most expensive thing. You should use a little heat on the basking site, and some UVB light on the tank in general. A 'mercury vapor' bulb will do both, or you can do a UVB bulb and a heat lamp.

Using a decent quality pellet is fine for about 4-5 days a week, and you can offer the same worms, crickets, or small fish you buy at the pet shop to feed fish for one of the days, and either water plants or dark leafy greens the other day.

I fond this on google.com hope it works.