Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello! I got a red eared slider from a street vendor at Coney Island. Though I'm no expert, I was well aware of how much work it took to care for turtle, and three years later he's still going strong. He was about the size of a fifty cent piece when I got him, and he's now about six or seven inches in diameter. He's active, he eats regularly (guppies, crickets, turtle food, mega-worms; sometimes live, sometimes canned), he swims around, he climbs on his little island and basks. I have a heat lamp and a UV lamp. He seems to be very healthy.

My questions are:

Little if any algae has grown in the tank. I was led to believe that algae is a sign that the turtle's environment is healthy. What can I do to get algae to grow in there? Or is that info incorrect?

Should I put some live plants in the tank? Right now there's just a couple of plastic plants in there.

The water in his tank turns a yellowish tint randomly. Sometimes it's nice and clear for a month straight, then I'll change the water and in just a couple of days it will go back to that amber color. Why does this happen and is it a problem? I use that turtle waste removal stuff about once a week. I change the filter about once every two weeks and change the water about once every two months.

Finally, his tank is a twenty gallon-er. I'm planning on getting him a bigger one pretty soon. What size is good for a six to seven inch slider?

Thanks!

The rule of thumb is ten gallons of water per inch of turtle. You would want at least 70 gallons of water, so a 100 gallon tank would be a good choice. If you had live plants you would probably get algae, it may just never get a chance in your tank since you clean it out every couple of weeks. Your turtles diet is way too high in protein, his diet should be mainly greens and aquatic plants, with just a small amount of protein every few days. He is about twice as big as he should be for his age.
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Algae means you tank is cycled well and gets light. The algae lives off the nitrates which are the final product of cycled turtle waste.

You animal is too large for the tank he is in which is why the water turns brown. Their is too much waste for the bacteria to break down. Unfortunatley everytime you completely clean the tank you break the cycle and there is nothing to naturally breat ddown the waste.

In short you need a larger tank and filtration system.