Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just bought 2 pastel red eared sliders that arrived today. One of the little guys constantly is swimming in circles. He submerges well and looks healthy but he just does this. We have just about written him off as "special" and intend to do what we can to give him a great life but I decided to throw the question out to you folks. Any ideas? We have considered raising the temp of the tank to hopefully help any possible respitory problems (but he is capable of submerging). Any other ideas?
Thanks for your time.

A lot of Pastel RES are born really messed up. They are doomed from the start, they have all kinds of genetic problems. I lost three hatchlings early this year. I do however have 3 sub adult pastels, I did buy these at four inches though. Just try your best to make things easy for the little guy. My babies that I lost earlier in the year had extra and irregular scutes and some of them were cross eyed. They would eat well at first, but would never grow and they never swam as good as my healthy RES. If you lose him, don't blame yourself, when dealing with pastels you're bound to lose some. I would keep them in shallow water if I were you. Good luck, hope that everything turns out well.

Joel

Well thanks for the kind words Joel. I will take very good care of him/her, I don't mind that it swims in circles I am just worried it will have trouble eating. I will not let it starve, I will find a way to feed it I guarantee that (anything short of making it uncomfortable). The problem is I already like the darn turtle, I guess I always root for the underdog. Well we have named it, and Dizzy thanks you for your response Joel.

If you find that he is having trouble eating you could put him in a seperate feeding tank with just enough water for him to walk in and pput his head under to eat. This way he's not swimming for his food but walking to it.