Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i got a baby red ear in late july and now 5 months later is is about the same size. my sisters and cousents turtles that are out of the same hatch are growing normally and are gigantic compared 2 mine. it was shy the 1st 2weeks i had him and he didnt eat much at all but now he eats alot. i fed him a proper diet and every thing. any thoughts?

Your turtle is most likely on a proper diet and your sisters is overfed. I have an overfed turtle that is 5 inches long after being a 1 inch long hatchling last year.
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Turtles have a very long span thus their growth should be slow.

As long as you are feeding a good diet and it appears healthy
I would not worry about it.

To give you an idea of slow growth my babies are 4.5 years old
now and are 4.5". In my opinion they still grew more than
they should have in the beginning because like many others
I overfed them at first.

Just a side note, do you have a UVB light source like a
Reptisun 5.0? This is very important as well to growing turtles.

Hope this helps
Linda

Quick question, the reptisun 5.0 is a tube light, right? Do I definitely need this source of UVB or will my UVB basking spot bulb be enough?

Do you actually have a UVB basking bulb? They cost about 45-60 dollars, so you should know if you have one or not. If you only spent 10 or 12 dollars, your bulb only produces UVA not UVB, and you would need the flourescent tube UVB bulb.
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a mercury vapor and they are $45-50/ea. There is alot
of confusion with the bulbs specifically sold for reptiles.
I would use a regular household bulb of appropriate wattage
for the heat source and a Reptisun 5.0 or Iguana light for
the UVB.

The bulb you are using has not UVB benefits, only UVA.

Linda

a mercury vapor and they are $45-50/ea. There is alot
of confusion with the bulbs specifically sold for reptiles.
I would use a regular household bulb of appropriate wattage
for the heat source and a Reptisun 5.0 or Iguana light for
the UVB.

The bulb you are using has not UVB benefits, only UVA.

Linda

I have an ESU coil bulb that produces UVA and UVB light. I paid about $30 for it at my local pet store.

Greetings,

I also use a coil bulb for UVB and it seems to help. It was about $20.00. However, it doesn't put out any heat. So, you will probably need or can use the UVA light you currently have to warm the basking spot.

Oh, BTW not use just any old "coil bulb", e.i. one from a local hardware store. I, in fact, have both. I use the "normal" coil bulbs (from the hardware store) throughout my house. They produce a white color light, where as the UVB produces a blue colored light.

-Ravon