Little Turtles?
 

Hello. My mom just brought home two little turtles each for both me and my sister. She got them off of Canal Street in NY, and I believe they are illegal here in New Jersey, lol. Anyway, I was trying to do some research, and I think they are Red Eared Sliders. They are about an inch and a half. (I know they will get bigger, and I all ready have a 20, and then a 30 gallon tank I can transfer them too as they grow. Ill probobly get a kiddy pool for them eventually.)

I went for two trips yesterday to two different pet stores and bought a bunch of stuff. A got a ten gallon tank along with a filter that says it works up to a ten gallon. A got a little floating dock with suction cups that sticks to the walls of the tank, and it takes up maybe 1/3 of the top of the tank. The rest is water. I had to raise the water quite high so the filter would work, so theres a lot of water in it.

I put a few fish in there along with two dwarfy frogs and a few fake plants and a few rocks. It has a clear bottom, I didnt use any rocks because I heard the frogs tend to ingest them.

I am working on a submergible(sp) heater, which hopefully I am getting today. I am basically out of money (Im only 15 years old:(), but is there anything else that I need desperately? I dont have a tank lid yet, because our pet stores are stupid and dont carry many, so I dont know how I'd get a heat light or something.



Also, a question. Even with the filter on, after only a day the water is pretty clouded. Is it just because of the food or something, and will the filter clean it out in a bit? Also, the turtles arent eating yet...are they just stressed out, and will they eat soon?

How commendable that you're trying to do right by these turtles!

You needn't have bought the 10 gal and should have put them immediately into one of your larger tanks.

The water is cloudy because there are way too many creatures in the tank. I would put them in the bigger tank now.

I had 4 red eared sliders for about 16 years. They need a large variety of different foods and many of them bought at the size of yours do not survive due to improper diet.

Please go to the following forum. It's all about turtles and there are many experienced people there who can answer all your questions!:)
[url]http://www.turtletimes.com/Forums/[/url]

I bought the ten gallon because my other two have many things in them right now. My twenty gallon has a ton of feeder fish in it, because I felt bad and didnt want them to get eaten, so I bought a bunch to give them a home. lol

My 30 gallon is being used for my assortment of frogs and newts, and Im redoing the whole thing right now, and trying to find the Water's Edge Kit, as I have in my other post here.

As for the new turtle tank, I moved the frogs and all the fish except for two goldfish, and I bought a snail and one of the sucker fish and threw them in there, because I heard they help to clean the algae off the tank. I also got the heater and hooked it up to about 78* Is that the right temperature?

If you have goldfish in the tank with these tiny turtles, they will starve to death, since the fish will eat everything. The turtles need to be in a tank by themselves at this size.

Did they come from a pet store? If so, it's illegal to sell turtles that size since most of them will not survive.

Go to the turtle forum I linked, and you can also read about proper care of these animals here:
[url]http://www.anapsid.org/reslider.html[/url]

Well the turtles are still showing absolutely no interest in the food at the moment. I have the turtle pellets Im giving them, do you think they would be more interested in eating something else right now? The goldfish are no problem, I want to keep the water as clean as possible, so I have a seperate container to feed them in, but they still arent eating anything.

My mom picked them up illegally off canal street in NY.

An update:

I finally got most of the things up. I completely redid my 30 gallon for my fish, my 20 gallon was cleaned, and the turtles tank's heater is working, along with an air pump and a filter. Maybe I can get some pics of stuff up later.

Sliders are wonderful turtles. I had a pair for about 12 years. They used to hiss at my father when he came into my room. Sliders will grow to their environment (i.e. bigger the tank bigger the turtle). I started mine off in a 10 gal, then moved to a 20 gal, then to a 70 gal. The turtles started off the size of a quarter and reached a final shell length of 9 inches. You need to stay on top of the cleaning (more so than with fish) as things will get stinky very fast. I was running a couple of large fluval cannister filtration units in the 70 gal and still had to do a good cleaning about once every 6 weeks.

Word of caution about leaving fish in with them -- the fish will soon be food when the turtles get larger. As a treat for my pair I used to get a couple of feeder gold fish and toss them in the tank. One gulp per turtle and the GF's were gone.

If they are not eating the turtle pellets, try a bit a raw beef, cut into very tiny pieces (about the size of the pellets). Clean out whatever they don't eat after 5 mins.

Best of luck.

Update: They still arent eating, and with my luck, I asked my mom for raw beef, 5 minutes after she got finished cooking it. -sigh- Im trying to get some though. I dont think my sister's have eaten either.

Are you feeding a sinking or a floating pellet? I found that mine liked the floating over the sinking. Another thought: small amout of canned dog or cat food (formed into very small pellets) may get them eating.

You can buy actual turtle food at the pet store.
It is large cubes of semisoft food.
My boyfriend kept sliders for a long time, and he said
they really relished cooked chicken!
Perhaps try that!
Im glad you are aware of how big sliders get,
as most people buy them under the assumption that
these tiny turtles stay small, not knowing they can get like
12+ inches across on the shell!
Dont worry about them being Illegal, every pet store in north america
pretty much sells them. I actually make a point of asking
the employees in Pet Stores if they are aware selling Red Ear Sliders
is illegal and can carry upwards of a 150,000 dollar fine! They usually look shocked and amazed and no, were not aware at all!
So it is quite obvious that despite the illegalness of these critters, that the fish and wildlife administrations are not checking fish stores for them.

I used to feed my turtles some veggies (shredded carrots, dark greens, etc.). They loved them. I had mine for 15 years in 100 g tank. They will also eat meats like chicken and beef but make sure it's really cooked.