Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, I really want an aquatic turtle and my mother said no because our kitten is sick and she's tired of having pets because of how they keep dying. I currently own 7 hamsters,2 cats, 3 parakeets, some fish. I want a turtle really bad and need some ideas of how to convince her to let me have one. Thanks!!

aquatic turtles require little maintnance. all you need is to just keep the aquarium clean and keep it fed all the time. if the fact is that your mom dosent want you to have one because of all the extra things you will need i have had baby aquatic turtles in the same aquarium as my fish were. By doing this you wouldnt have to worry bout settin up a whole other aquarium and everything else when they could just live with your fish. But you would have to have some kind of floating device in it for it to bask on. Hope this helps.

crocker

That does not solve the problem though. The fish will probably be eaten and it will need a bigger tank in a year or so depending on the size of your aquarium. I would no get one if you can not give the correct care, these are NOT cheap pets. For a correct setup you will end up spending at least $200.00 if not more.
Chris D.
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Hey mine name is Chris and I currently have 1.0 Midland Painted, 1.0 YBS, 1.1 Leopard geckos, 1.0 Bearded Dragon

the caveat to the previous post about turtles being "easy" is that they are ONLY easy if you spend a fortune getting the right equipment to set up an extremely large tank right away, cycle the filters properly, and get a biologically sound tank running before you even consider buying the turtle. You can spend several hundred bucks doing this, all for a $5 turtle.

If you do not do this, maintaining your turtle will be a HUGE pain in the booty, requiring constant water changes and filter cleanings on small tanks with cruddy filters, the turtle will be less likely to stay healthy, creating vet costs, etc.

So you can go cheap and extremely annoying, or you can go expensive and easy....

But if you can't keep animals alive in the house, your mother may have a good point. A hamster costs relatively little to set up and care for, a turtle can cost you a fortune. If it's not alive long, for whatever reason, you are still out a few hundred bucks for the setup.

As an added bit of advice, do NOT keep the turtle in the same room with any birds. I took in some birds for my mother once several years ago because of a house fire and all of my herps were dead within two weeks. I learned the hard way that birds can carry various diseases and parasites that are fatal to reptiles. It was a horrible experience and I will never make the same mistake again.

~L~