Hi! Introduce yourselves here. :: Famous Last Words:Yes, I'll take the Turtle

[Rhodesl2]

Hi There. Some months ago, I adopted a RES from my eight year old cousins, who no longer had any interest in it. Since that time, I have read all of the material on the redearslider site and have tried to apply it as best as I can. However, this is no substitute for experience and I am certainly open to any suggestions relating to (her?) care.

The Turtle:
Name- Santee
Length- ~4 inches
Diet- Pellets(enough to fill up the head) twice a day on every other day
Red Leaf Lettuce on the days where pellets aren't given.
Lighting-UVB, Heat Lamp
Housing-10 gallon (I know this is too small, but I don't have the resources to replace it at this time), 90 gallon reptofilter,river rocks

[steve]

Welcome to the site. I would cut down on the pellets... whats the basking area like? Does she bask a lot? Is she definitely a female?

[Rhodesl2]

She is a female from what I can tell. She does bask a lot. She has a turtle dock in the tank that serves as the basking area, which is temperature monitored. It stays around ~90 degrees Fahrenheit. I've been thinking of trying to cut the amount of pellets in half and increasing the veggies. Would that be a good move?

[steve]

Yes, she should be getting one head-size serving (or less) very other day.

[penelope]

Welcome to the forum!
You can take a peek at the nutrition page for some ideas on which greens to feed. Red lettuce isn't bad, but there are others that have a little more nutrtional value. But heck! At least she is eating greens; that's an accomplishment in itself

[Rhodesl2]

I'll definitely adjust the pellets. I may have figured out a solution to the space issue. It turns out it only costs around 40 dollars to build a 40 gallon tank. When I get my paycheck in I'm going to start on it.

[steve]

Petco has a few sales a year for aquariums... $1 per 1 gallon, up to 55 gallons. I'd rather spend $40 on a 40 gallon breeder tank than making one. But if she's a female, you'd want to think about larger tanks.

[joe_and_jeep]

I get all my tanks on Craigslist, you can sometimes find 55 or 75 gallons for free. But you can always find tanks for $50.

[Rhodesl2]

Yeah the tank thing didn't work so well. Upon seeing my failure though, a lot of my relatives started offering my tanks around the size that I was trying to construct. It served its purpose I suppose. Now I have a really big tank that I just setup, a new filter I'm trying to figure out, and a water siphon all for free. I built a divider about 7 inches in out of scrap acrylic and filled it with rocks to make a sort of land section. I made some of those turtle jello shots and she ate those for a long while. I'll have to make more though, because now she won't touch the fresh stuff.

[steve]

Sounds like a good start!