my tank isn't very big right now. It's only 10 gallon, but I'm changing to a 20 gallon sometime in the next 2 months. It's been a concern of mine that his tank isn't large enough, but I watch him daily to make sure he's content. It wasn't until after I had set up a 10 gallon tank that I started finding more websites about pet turtle care and realized that I should have a larger tank. The water changes and cleaning of the tank I mentioned previously has been the minimum I've done so far. I try to check his water daily.



I'll take a picture as soon as I can, I just don't know how to load them to this site.



My routine in the mornings has been to turn his lights on when I first get up, leave them on all day (my mother is home and turns them off for me if she goes out). The lights are usually off when I get home, so I turn them back on until I go to bed at night. So he usually has lights on about 12-14 hours a day. I just can't leave them on if no one is home because we have 6 cats and they are terribly curious about the turtle and the feeder fish. My mother says she has seen him basking during the day and I've seen him basking in the evening. I'm only home during the day on weekends, but I've seen him basking contently. Before I made the mistake of changing his tank decor, I had gotten to the point where he wouldn't jump into the water if I approached the tank. Now he's a bit insecure so he only lets me get 2 feet from the tank before jumping back into the water. I usually view him from across the room when he's basking thru binoculars.

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