Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi!! I just found a turtle. I have deteremined that it is an Eastern Painted Turtle. It is currently in a small rubbermaid container half filled with water, and some dandelion greens. It's shell is about 5 inches long. I have some questions, and if anyone could answer them, I would really appreciate it!! I have been unable to find any good websites on painted turtles so far.
1)How old is my turtle and how long will it live?
2)What kind of home does it need?(I am unable to keep it outside)
3)What do I feed it?
4)How do I tell if it is male or female?
5)What are some good painted turtle websites
6)Is there anything else I need to know about painted turtle care?
Thanks to anyone who is able to answer my questions-I really appreciate it!!!

I did not find the turtle, It was given to me by someone who no longer wants to care for it and was going to "release" it

Well keeping a turtle is not cheap. First off they can live for a very long time...Even up to 40 years. For a painted turtle you will need at least a 55gal tank, or rubbermaid. You will also need a submersible heater to keep the water at about 78. Then you need some kind of filter, a canister filter would be best, such as a FilStar XP3, or Fluval 404. They can cost around $40-80 dollars. Then you must get a flourecent light fixture to hold a UVB bulb like a repti-sun 5.0, they cost about $20 a piece. You will also need a heat lamp for a basking area. There is much more but I dont wan to type it so go here... www.Austinsturtlepage.com and go to caresheets, then go to painted turtles. Hopwe this helps,
Chris D.

You will need a basking site, preferably a piece of wood or bark at least twice the size of the turtle.

Also needed is strong basking light between 75-200 watts depending upon the distance from the basking site. the goal is to get the basking site to a temp near 88 - 92 F
Keep the air in the upper seventies and the water in from 72 - 76. you do need a thermomter, guessing doesn't work.

also UVB lightins needed, Get the most you can afford like the exo tera repti glo 8.0

water plants for him to eat would be good
try to get elodea, anacharis, duckweed, salvinia, water hyacinth or water lettuce.

You can feed him crickets (dust with calcium first) superworms
earth worms red wiggler worms, and beetles as well.
water bugs and snails may also be eaten.
Try boiled chicken and cooked canned fish. Avoid feeder fish until you learn more about them.

a filter is a good idea as is a tank at least 4 feet long (5 or 6 feet is probbaly better)
I think a cannister filter is a waste of money for turtles; i reccomend getting a good strong power filtyer such as the hagen aquaclear 500.

Be prepared to change the filter media often (every three weeks or so, bio filtration is unlikely to be successfully except in large tanks) and for partial water changes every week or more.

Use LARGE gravel on the bottom (sold as "river rock" in some places). The goal is to avoid the turtle eating it so use rocks the size of his head or bigger.

Dandelion greens are an excellent food, but in my expereice, they are rarely taken by painteds.

make an underwater cave from some bark or wood or plastic container tops . make sure its is wide and dark and will not collapse.
Here is a very basic care sheet: paintedcarebyWCT

good luck

OK, I am a fish person, so I think turtle care won't be so hard for me to learn. Would a sponge filter work for a turtle? I switched the turtle to a 29G tank until I can get a rubbermaid tub. WIll putting the container next to a window work for a few weeks until I can get the lights? I started feeding it earthworms, and I transplanted some elodea to it's tank. How should I feed it the worms?? just put them in the tank? How many worms should I feed a day? I have set up the tank with river rock that I had on hand, and a large basking rock. Also I put a cave in. Do I need to put dechlorinator in turtle water like for fish? I have major snail problems in one of my tanks, so I have a big supply of those!! Thanks so much!!

Hey,
A spounge filter would prob not be strong enough unless you plan on doing water changes twice a week. Let's just say the more filtraion the better. If you were setting up a tank for fish and you put a filter on it, you should double the water intake (gph) for turtles. So, for a 30gal tank, a filter rated for 60 gallons on up would be best, and save you a lot of time. Feeding wise, be careful with worms. If you use any fertilizers on your lawn do not use the worms since they may have fertilizer on them, which could kill your turtle. Try buying him rosy reds, (small minnow like fish that you can buy at the petstore for like 10 cents a piece). Also try giving him some pellet food like Repto-min. He will also eat the aqautic plants. For the lights, glass filters out all UVB rays so it wiould not be benificial. But sunlight will be ok for a few days. But you will still need to supply him with a basking light over his basking area. Hope this helps,
Chris D.

My yard is not fertilized, and the area around it is completely forest, so there is little chance of pesticides and fertilizers in the worms. He now has a heater and thermometers(water, basking air, basking water, air) What if the window is open(It's warm now) I cant get lights for a few weeks. rosy reds are good food? Can I just put them in his tank? Hhould I feed the fish anything special, or just normal fish food? How many rosies should I feed him a day? I am thinking a combination of crickets, rosies, worms, snails, elodea and turtle food would be good. How much should I feed of each of these, also how do I feed them and how often? Thanks!!

do what you have to for the mean time, but then save and build a suitable permanent home as you can. The turtle will do fine for a few weeks or month in a tub with a rock and a desk lamp for light if that's what you need to do.

As a fish person, you should be ready to handle this, but there is one big thing you need to learn. Turtles bring about ten times the bioload of fish per size.

Normally folks say take one inch of fish per gallon of water to make an easily sustainable tank.

Make that 10 gallons per inch of turtle. I would encourage you to make sure you know the sex of the turtle (if it's little and you can't tell, guess female) find the adult size of that particular subspecies in inches (carapace length) and then multiply by ten. Set up a tank that has that many gallons OF WATER. Remember, in a turtle tank you drop the water level enough so you can put in a basking spot and still have the lid on it, or else you need to build an external basking spot. So for instance, you can put 30 gallons into a 40 breeder, so it would be good for a 3 inch turtle.

For a painted, if the subspecies had the adult female size of say 7 inches, you'd want 70 gallons of water and enough air space above that to have your basking spot, so something like a 90 gallon would work nicely. Larger is ALWAYS better, even for hatchlings.

For filtration, I HIGHLY recommend using a UGF filter with a THICK layer of gravel on bottom of the tank. You can put large river stones over that if you are nervous about the eating of gravel, but I tend not to sweat that much (though you should be aware that very very rarely, an animal can get sick or die from eating gravel, but it is very very rare for them to get sick and even more rare for them to die from this). I would use normal powerhead setup for this (except drop your intake hoses down enough that the powerheads are working right in the lower water level, obviously) like you would for fish.
Now, I would ALSO have a cannister filter like the fluval 404 or the xp3 or whichever you like. Why? Because it will suck out most of the junk and "polish" your water nicely, while your UGF works as a great bio filter cleaning out fine junk and chemically handling the ammonia... I used this for my winter tank this year and I didn't have to change water all winter, just add more and do one partial change and two filter cleanings.

it was wonderful. And I had way too much turtle for the tank (it was a winter quickie job, they live outdoors normally, which is the best life at turtle can have).

Good luck.

Oh, and for a painted, don't bother buying a heater. You don't need it if this tank is in your house, unless you keep your house below the mid 60's.

OK, I can do that, I have an old UGF, and probably some old powerheads, and maybe even a cannister filter(I have Tons of old fish junk in boxes in my basement, I really should probably sort it all out, but that will never happen LOL) Gravel is also not a problem. Will UVB light penetrate clear plastic? the huge tub I got has a clear plastic top. How much should a 6 inch painted turtle eat in a week? I am going to get his food for the week(turtle pellets, rosies, and crickets, plus dig up worms) How much of each of these should I feed? Can I just put the Rosy Reds in his tank and let him eat as he wants? Could I breed guppies to feed him? They would be healthy, I would make sure of that!!

repost these questions at the top for some more people to see it (I almost missed it down here).

You will need to have nothing in the way of the uv bulb, cutting a hole in the lid might work, or not using the lid....

yeah more filtration
but for a 30 gallon and one turte i get a filter that turned over at ;east 120 gph.
And use power filters
you basically are just going for mechanical filtration as the waste produced will be trmendous compared with that of fish.
think: one 5 inch turtle equals about 4 five inch oscars at least

OK, There is not a problem with it being expensive, however I cannot spend a lot of money at the moment, it will be a few weeks before I can get all the supplies. What are some temporary solutions? I am prepared to care for the turtle as long as it lives. Thanks for replying!

Well... You can house him in a rubbermaid (cheap). Put a large rock in there with a heatlamp over head, and throw in some aquatic plants and he should be just fine for a week or 2. Then when you get the stuff you can make it look more natural with driftwood, river rock, ect.
Chris D.

You might have better luck searching www.google.com with the species name Chrysemys picta

I would check out both the World Chelonian Trust's care sheets (from the link below) and those at www.austinsturtlepage.com

(male turtle on right in the photo below)

Darrell

World Cheloian Trust

guppies would work, unless your turtle is anything like mine who have decided to befriend the rosey reds and the guppies and are two damn lazy to chase them. I am right now looking at my turtle tnak with close to 30 fry that were born in the last two days and thinking - population expolsion