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1 - When feeding romaine, what is better, ripping it into shreds or dropping a large piece of the leaf directly into the tank?

2 - I have noticed that my RES does not come out of the water to dry off. She floats around, hangs on the vines, sitts on the bottom, swims all around, loves her pellets, but in a month, i have only seen her out of the water a couple of times Is this a problem?

1. Whichever your turtle prefers is fine I think. Leo personally likes to "attack" the lettuce so I leave it in bigger pieces for her to grab on to. From my experience, turtles only bite off what they can chew so don't worry about the larger pieces being too big, plus they're easier to clean up

2. Perhaps your turtle is a shy basker. The fact that you have caught her out of the water means she can bask, she may just be too timid to bask around you. Is the tank in a room with a lot of activity?

there is activity here every other weekend when i have my sons (14 and 16). but during the day she is alone. at night i am the only one here and it is quiet. when i go by the tank most of the times she swims over and greets me in anticipation of being fed.

i have changed the tank a bit (30 gallon tank) , putting more water in it. at first it was only about just under half full and it was easy to pile bg flat rocks for her to bask on. but most said that less water is dangerous and that the tank need as much water as I could get in it so she could swim around. when i put more water in it was evident that she really liked swimming and the new environment. so i bought a zoo med turtle dock. not many available that are good. i hope she is a shy basker. i dont want her to get sick from never drying out.

The lettuce thing is easy. Let it float or cut it up. My turtle also likes to "attack it" so I leave it floating on the surface or on clip mounted to the side of the tank.

Basking: My turtle is a streaky basker. What I mean by that is he will bask alot over a week, and then maybe in only short incriments, like 30minutes everyday. I struggled with figuring out if his basking habits were caused by me, or him. After adjusting his basking spot, trying out 4 different bulbs and 2 fixtures, I finally got a good temp in a spot which is easy to get to.

My final setup is a workman's clamp lamp from Home Depot (150 watt max), with a 75 watt, clear bulb in it. It's a little over 12 inches from the basking surface. The basking surface goes between 92-94 degrees.

Maybe this will help.

thanks VA. I think that the turt basks when I am not looking. i hope that she doesnt get water logged...