Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My female RES is very aggressive against the smaller male. It bit the male tail's off!

I just separated the female, and put it in a bucket.

Is there anyway that turtles can be "classically conditioned" like dogs? lol

What are my options here, asides giving the female away or gettinga new tank....

oh yea...the female bit my thumb too.. and it hurts!

the turtles are aroundthe size of your palm

some extra info
The female is around 5 inches, and the male is slightly smaller

my tank is roughly 1.5ft width, 1.5ft height, and 2.5ft long (sorry, i dont know how many gallons that is

is it possible that the tank is too small for the both of them?

The tank is way too small. They should be in something at least twice that size. Generally, if they are aggressive towards each other they may never get along, but they may get used to each other if they are gradually introduced to each other. You can't let them injure each other tho, they must be separated at the first sign of aggression.
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So how long should i separate them both?
Right now the female is being isolated in a bucket

i would say first... get a larger tank. these turtles need room to swim, and the tank that you described seems to be too small for 2 turtles of that size!
then i would suggest that you introduce them slowly. This is what i did whenever i got my new turtle. i started off with an hour here... then 2 hours, and eventually they got used to each other! hope this helps!
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~ Evie

Pets:
German Shephard {Dusty}
German Shephard/Collie mix {Shadoe}
2 RES turtles {Booger and Snot}
African Clawed Frog {Bingo}
Snail {Gary}

Classic conditioning?

Hahah..well, in a post a while ago, I mentioned when I was a kid and my turtles got into a fight, I'd take the victim and manually make it chase the bully in water. Sometimes this will induce the victim to bite back at its harasser and then it'll "learn" to stop the attacks and both will cope. I don't recommend that as a solution now--rather prefer separate tanks--but that's just curiosity back then.

Johnny