Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone successfully keep these? If so,
a)What substrate
b) What basking temp
c) What ambient temps
d) Any strange habits I should be aware of?
Thanks for any help. I just got four, from an importer. They are not feeding, and I'm not sure if I am keeping them correctly. I've tried bananas with snow peas and mealworms.

They should be kept in a hot and humid tropical forest habitat.
I use a soil, peat moss and sphagnum moss mixture. Shallow water for soaking needs to be provided.

Unfortunately, nearly every imported spinosa will be dead within a year. Generally, a very competent turtle vet that is well versed in Asian species is needed to "clean" this species up if it is going to survive. However, every once in a while an individual will have a strong immune system and will adapt well to captivity.

A moist, dark environment with cypress bark, or bed a beast (coconut fiber)works well. Some of these turtles seem to do better with either a very large water bowl, or a semi-aquatic setup. I have a large cement tub in their enclosure with a canister filter to keep the water clean and flowing (they seem to like this). My large male uses the pond, but my smaller female prefers a water bowl, go figure. I have never once seen either of them bask in over 3 years, wether with white light, or my preference for forest dwellers black light. I also do not use UVB because all they do is avoid it! They do seem to be more nocturnal, particularly the older male.

Temps in the mid 70's to the low 80's seem to work best, as they appear to get aggrivated by the hot summer temps. Feeding can be a whole other issue altogether! Many die because they just won't eat, so here's some suggestions. Mazuri tortoise diet, Iams beef dog food (not too much with the smaller ones or their shells distort), strawberries, tomatoes, banana?, mango, cantelope, sweet potato, butternut squash. Overall they seem to have a bit of a sweet tooth, but you could try live foods too! Basically anything that works to get them going.

Definitely get them treated with Flagyl and Panacur to kick down any parasites, and leave them alone! I find them to be very secretive, and sometimes just looking at them upsets them. Adults tend to be more sensitive, picky, touchy, and just easily upset in general. My best suggestion is to set them up and leave them alone as much as possible! If you need anything else please send me an e-mail!

Freight

I know 2 people who have them. One has one, and the other as 4 also. They both got them from a reptile swap. The one person got his 2 last year, seems healthy. The other guy has had 3 of them for quite a few years, and just bought the 4th not so long ago. I'm not sure about the setup from my experiance. But on the health issue, i've also heard they are hard to keep alive. But these 2 people have, so i dunno.

Hello,

I Have 1.3 Heosemys spinosas. Mine are doing well on super worms, caned cat food, live crayfish, live fish, frozen fish, mango, guava and avocados. I have them set up on peat and soil mix with a Rubbermaid box for water. The turtles at first were shy about eating and took them a few weeks to even move wile in sight of me.
Hope this helps,
Adam