So after a trip from New England and getting a baby red eared slider from Boston's Chinatown, I decided to buy my girlfriend a little tiny baby turtle. Little did I know, it was going to be a pretty costly investment. So far we have him in a 10 gallon tank, with a basic small floating basking area, 10" heat lamp with a 60w incandescent bulb, 76 degree steady water heater, small river stone substrate with a plastic plant and some shells, and a cuttle bone (turtle calcium bone). So far Chang seems very happy, swimming around in his water, exploring his new home, but his eating is sort of worrying me. I know that we may have too much water, but he doesn't seem to mind, he uses up all the water in his swimming. It seems as if the only thing Chang eats is the dried krill which obviously isn't too great of a meal. We have offered him baby turtle pellets (which he takes very small bites and leaves the rest), gut filled small crickets (which he's very afraid of
), tropical fish flakes (which he has no interest in), and even the adult food that came with him (which he ignores).
One of my main questions is the UVB lamp layout. Since we have a pretty large sized heat lamp, there's limited room to provide a UVB light source for him. I would rather not buy another heat lamp along with the bulb so I'm hoping to get a fluorescent tube to provide the UVB. I just don't know where to find the actual fixture to plug the tube into and where to place it. Any help would be appreciated!
Here's some pictures of Chang and his home. (:Little Chang (:
His Home.
Chang, his waterfall, and his water heater.
Chang's plant, dock and bright light.
Thanks guys!
. you do need to remove the rocks BUT you can still use the gravel vac so it was worth buying 