Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My wife received a baby RES from her brother 3 weeks ago. I'm not sure where it was purchased, but it is pretty small (2in. shell approx.). He obviously put a fair amount of research and work into its habitat. It is in a 20 gal tank. We will get a larger one as it grows, but right now it is plenty. 2/3 of the area is water with the rest being river type stone. We have a heat lamp, water heater (78 degrees), not sure exact name of filter but it is the type that cover almost the entire bottom as is covered by the river stone. The filter seems to be doing a decent job. The turtle is kept in my wifes classroom. It is in an area that it receives very little attention from the students, but yet my wife can keep a pretty close watch on it. No student has been allowed to even touch it yet. I have several concerns.
1. As expected, it would not eat for at least a week. Even now,3 weeks later, we barely see it eat anything. I have seen it eat, but only a few little bites from a pellet. We have also tried bloodworms (Few bites), and apple (nothing). It has a food dish on land but we never see any signs that it has tried to use it so we have been putting food in dish and in the water. He seems happy, pretty acive but we are worried because 3 weeks have gone by and we have no idea if he is eating enough.
2. He never comes out of the water. His lamp is on all day, but it gets turned off at 4pm when my wife leaves, then back on at 8am. She never seees him get out of the water. If he does get out after she leaves, then the light is off. We don't want to leave the light on all night since it is in the school. How bad is this? (On weekends we do go in and turn the light on during the day)
Any help would be appreciated!

ok, first the light should come on during the weekends too. This is easy to do with a light timer. Some are very simple and cheap, you just plug in the cord, set the times and it's done. Some are more complicated and have multiple outlets.
Your turtle is prolly not coming out while people are around as turtles especially babies can be rather skittish. As they grow more comfortable in their environment you may see them bask in your presence. It is a little bit of a concern that they don't get to bask at all because there are always people near enough to make them uncomfortable. But if you got a light timer you could set it to go off around 5-6 (still safe for the school cause there's prolly still a few people around that late) and your little guy would have an hour or two of uninterupted basking.
as well your turtle/s can go without pellets during the weekend, but you might want to provide some greenery to munch on if they so desire. Young turtles are more carnivourous then older turtles, so they may not take much notice of your greens, but it doesn't hurt to add them anyway, just incase
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- Melanie

2.0 cats
1.0 leopard gecko
1.0 Bernese mountain dog
2.1 red ear sliders
0.0.1 emperor scorpion
1 south american cichlid tank
2 planted tanks with dwarf cichlids and platies

One more thing, RES can't eat out of the water, so having a food dish on land is a waste of time. You have to put the food in the water.
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A mans got to do what a mans got to do. A woman has to do what he can't.

Mom to:

1 little boy born 7/19/04
2 male RES, born 1999
1 ribbon snake, age unknown
3 FBT, ages unknown
1 female bearded dragon, born 5/2002
1 male lab mix, born 5/24/03
1 female calico cat, born 6/7/04

____

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Edited on January 29, 2005 at 09:35:54 by phwyvern.

I agree that you should get a timer and set it so that the light stays on for a couple hours after everyone has left the classroom.

You did not mention wether or not you have a UVB bulb, and i did not see one in the picture. This is an absolute necessity. Turtles need UVB to grow, so put a UVB light over his tank. Don't be fooled by the incandescant lamps that say "UV rays" because they usually mean UVA, which isn't what you are looking for. If you are not sure, keep in mind that real UVB lights are expensive, and you probably will not pay less than 20$ for the bulb.

As far as feeding, try to intice the little guy by dropping in a couple live small crickets.
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0.1 Bearded dragon
0.1 mexican kingsnake
1.0.2 Leopard Gecko's
0.0.1 Rose Hair Tarantula
1.0 BTS
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
0.1 Bullmastiff
4.1 Cats

Live Prey : you can also use small worms to entice the baby turtle to eat.

Also, it would be much easier to buy one of the 'floating' docks so that you don't lose all of that precious swimming space for the turtle in your tank. turtles LOVE to swim.... and keep in mind that the 'rule of thumb' is 10 gallons of water per inch of turtle. so considering your tank is only a 20 galling, plus it's not filled to capacity, AND it has all of that space taken away because of the 'built up basking spot'... i would say you should start looking for a tank soon!

Also, i think that the timers are a GREAT idea. I have 2 turtles and mine are set on a timer and it's a LIFE SAVER! this could also help because you wouldnt have to go in on the weekends to turn on the lights.... the timer does it all!

as far as cleanliness... i have noticed that it's A LOT easier not to use a substrate for the bottom of the tank. it's so much easier to clean.

i cant wait to have my turtles in my classroom (i graduate in may with a Secondary Mathematics Education degree)... so i'm excited! haha

i hope you enjoy your turtle and i hope this has helped!
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~ Evie

Pets:
RIP 0.1.0 German Shepherd {Dusty}
0.1.0 German Shepherd/Collie mix {Shadoe}
0.0.2 RES turtles {Booger & Snot}
1.0.0 African Clawed Frog {Bingo}
0.0.2 Snail {Gary & Larry}

I do not see a UVB source. Is your heat lamp a mercury
vapor bulb? Also, I would get a timer and set it so
the turtle has 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness.
I have my lights go on about and 7am and off at 7pm
You shouldn't let the turtle go all weekend without lights.
With a timer, it will happen automically.

Hope this helps

I will have to check what type of heat lamp that we have. I know it is UV, but I don't know if it is A or B. The silver fixture clamped to the top of the aquarium is what we have the existing lamp screwed into. I presume a UVB lamp (if that is not what we have) will screw in just like a houehold lamp would?
I guess I will get a timer. To reclarify from my original post, we DO go in and turn the lamp on every weekend. We only live about 3 miles from the school. So actually the weekends are the best for him, because he has the lamp and he is alone. I do admit that I get concerned about the heat lamp being on in the school when no one is there, but I obviously want a healthy turtle.
I am aware that they need water to eat, his food dish is filled with water, and he is small enough that he can submerse himself in it, but he seems to have no interest in it. Besides, maybe we are spoiling him by putting the food in his big body of water, but we have been very concerned about him not eating very much. The filter pump creates a constant, slow circulation, of the entire body of water. The only time I really see him eat is if he so happens to be hanging out near a small little pool of dead water and food stops right beside him for awhile. Even then he may take a small bite and thats it. He seems to totally ignore anything that slowly flows by him. He doesn't want to chase anything down.
All said, he does seem happy and energetic when he does decide to go for a swim.
Thanks for all the advice, I welcome all the help I can get.

i can tell you right now that you do NOT have a UVB light because a UVB light (as far as i know) ONLY comes in a long tube.... like an aquarium light. also, if the basking spot is not warm enough, the turtle will not come out of the water, so your basking spot should be about 85 degrees. and your water temps should be close to 75 or above.

because your turtle is so small, he should not be fed 'a lot' of food. they need fed protein everyday, but ONLY enough that can fit into his head. new people that own turtles tend to overfeed their turtles and have them become obese and possibly even die. it's a sad but true fact!

also, you should just put the food into the water, if he's hungry, he'll eat it. there is no reason to take away part of his basking spot to put a 'food dish' there. because odds are... he wont use it anyways!

also, i wanted to tell you that u also need to feed this little guy calcium. you can either give him egg shells (which mine refust to eat) or you can get one of those cuttle bones (in the bird dept) and break off the HARD backing and throw that into the water, OR you can also get a calcium power and put that on the pellets, crickets or even worms.

the live food may entice the turtle to want to eat more.

also, you can buy some ping pong balls and throw it into the tank. the turtles (or at least mine do) love to play with them.

hope this helps
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~ Evie

Pets:
RIP 0.1.0 German Shepherd {Dusty}
0.1.0 German Shepherd/Collie mix {Shadoe}
0.0.2 RES turtles {Booger & Snot}
1.0.0 African Clawed Frog {Bingo}
0.0.2 Snail {Gary & Larry}

Mercury vapor UVB lights can screw into a normal socket, but they cost about $45-60 so you would probably know if thats what you had.
-----
A mans got to do what a mans got to do. A woman has to do what he can't.

Mom to:

1 little boy born 7/19/04
2 male RES, born 1999
1 ribbon snake, age unknown
3 FBT, ages unknown
1 female bearded dragon, born 5/2002
1 male lab mix, born 5/24/03
1 female calico cat, born 6/7/04

____

sig file

Edited on January 29, 2005 at 09:34:10 by phwyvern.

wow... that is EXPENSIVE! the tube ones seem to be much less expensive, is there a big difference between them, besides the OBVIOUS cost?
is one better than the other? or anything like that....

btw... your baby boy is getting bigger everytime i see a new pic! reminds me of my baby nephews... haha
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~ Evie

Pets:
RIP 0.1.0 German Shepherd {Dusty}
0.1.0 German Shepherd/Collie mix {Shadoe}
0.0.2 RES turtles {Booger & Snot}
1.0.0 African Clawed Frog {Bingo}
0.0.2 Snail {Gary & Larry}

This may be a dumb question, and I am sure I will figure it out as soon as I go to purchase a UVB lamp. Will the UVB lamp now be my heat (basking)lamp or will I still use the current basking lamp that I have in conjunction with the UVB tube?
I presume most any pet store would have live crickets? Should I be concerned about cricket size?
This may be the dumbest question, but do any of the veggies float? I have only tried apple and carrot, and the slivers of course sunk straight to the bottom and stayed there, he didn't have clue that they were there.
Thanks

(The water temp is 78)

UVB bulbs (unless they are mercury vapor bulbs) are florescent tubes and do not put off any heat. but IMPORTANT IMPORTANT: your turtle MUST be able to get close to the uvb light. I would take the recomendation of the eariler response and ditch the rocks and use a Zoo-Med turtle dock instead, it should be available at any pet store. That way you can fill almost the entire tank with water that way and your turtle can get up by the bulb. Your turtle needs as much swimming room as possible, especially in such a small tank. Keep in mind he needs 10gallons per inch of shell, so as soon as he grows beyond 2 inches, he needs a bigger tank.

As far as floating veggies, try leafy greens Collard, Mustard and Danelion greens work well. But your baby will probably do no more than pick at them at this age, it is still important he has acess to them so he grows up and eats them as he gets older.

Live crickets are available at any store, buy the smallest ones. Also some pet stores, although more likely a tropical fish store, can sell you live Blood Worms or Brine Shrimp, which your turtle will relish.

I cannot stress enough how important is it you get a UVB bulb. Look for a Zoo-med 5.0 Repti-Sun bulb. It will cost around $20-30, and you will need to buy a fixture as well.
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0.1 Bearded dragon
0.1 mexican kingsnake
1.0.2 Leopard Gecko's
0.0.1 Rose Hair Tarantula
1.0 BTS
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
0.1 Bullmastiff
4.1 Cats