Hi, I have 2 adolescent male sliders named Tina & Ty (we thought for sure tina was a girl and the name kind of stuck). I've had Tina for about 3 years, since he was a hatchling. I adopted Ty recently and he is about 4 years old. When I introduced the 2 turles, Tina immediately started fluttering his nails in Ty's face and then mounted him, with a crazy look in his eye. 
Ty does the same to Tina, but has been getting more aggressive, i.e. trying to bite Tina's face (which I understand is mating type behavior). My question is, should I separate these 2 for safety reasons? So far, no blood has been drawn, so I'm not sure if this is aggressive or more oversexed adolescent acting out behavior. Overall, Tina seems much happier having a tank-mate, so I am reluctant to separate them, but any advice would be appreciated.
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Male Turtles trying to Mate
Replies (4)
Unless you are some kind of homophobe, you can probly keep them together. If anything, try getting a bigger tank
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Since they are not adults most likely they're becoming hormonal teenagers who may be trying to establish a pecking order or establish indvidual territory.
I'd put them in a larger tank now as iturnrocks suggested but if the behavior continues and there is blood drawn, then I'd separate them for good.
I had a woman show me her two RES once, she said they'd been fighting, didn't have a clue that both were male.
One of them wasn't just missing nails, he was missing toes.
I think when it gets that far, then YES it's time to separate them, yikes!
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PHRatz
they have done this as long as I can remember. The funny thing
is they share their pond with a female slider and they act as
if she doesn't exist.
They should be fine as long as they are pretty much the
same size and one isn't too rough.
Hope this helps
Linda
I have two 4.5" males who grew up together who flutter nails and one mounts the other...they are weird. They also live with two younger females and don't bother them.
