Your setup seems very nice. A bit improvised in some areas, but it seems okay for any water turtle, even a painted. Foliage seems a bit much. As for water treatment, you 'could' treat it if you like, but tap does fine.

The turtles death is most likely result of stress. Shrimps might be problem. I dunno but I have read somewhere that an entire shrimp diet can be bad, but that seems like it would take much longer. Also painters are by nature eaters of shrimp, crustaceans, worms, and other invertabraes and vegetation. But it is most likely stress played a role

Tank size is okay for now. Turtles won't get bigger than a few inches until they are over 3-4 years old. Unless of course you feed them a lot and often....

Cat hair may or may not pose threat to turtles, but then again their hair is fine not to mention dandruff flies from them.

One more thing, I think you should try another source for turtles. Unless this is the only one that can supply this particular breed, I would go for something else.

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