Reptile & Amphibian Forums

When does a RES start accepting vegetable matter on their diet? I have 3 babies i hatched from eggs that were given to me by my tutor(that kept adult RES, & has no idea how to hatch the eggs or even keep the eggs, wich usually end up in the drain or accidentally stomped by the adults). And one more thing. From 3 of my babies, one of them are older by a few days, and grew like crazy, while the other two stayed quite small. i decided to put the bigger, older one, seperated from the two "runts". I feed them commercial turtle pellets, dried shrimp, live fish (goldfish & platys), live freshwater shrimp, fish food (wich i found out, helps promote good colouration), freeze dried tubifex cubes. For the bigger one, i occasionally drop a small mealworm (freshly molted, took off the head), and small cricket. Any other ideas are fully appreciated.
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My "babies" :
1.0.0 Indo BTS (Tiliqua gigas gigas)
0.0.1 Rainbow skinks (Mabuya multifasciata)
0.0.3 RES (Trachemys scripta elegans)
0.0.4 Amboina box turtles (Cuora amboinensis)
1.0.0 Chinese softshell (Trionyx sinensis)
1.0.0 Asian leaf turtle (Cyclemys dentata)
1.0.0 Leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius)
And still growing...

I almost forgot. is it possible to sex baby RES? If it is, how can you tell a male from a female. I heard one theory, where they say: RES with a lot of irregular squiggly blothches on its plastron is a female, while one with little, organized looking blotches is a male (the one with more blotches is a female). When i was small, i noticed and was able to differenciate the one with more squiggles from the one with less squiggles (a male & a female). After a while, my old RES grew, and the one with less squiggles (the "supposed" male), showed male characteristics, like long nails used for courtship, while the other ("supposed" female) stayed the same. I was never able to effectively prove this method though, coz at that time, i let lose most of those turts in the backyard, and was never able to find them again (i was 8 at that time for crying out loud. besides, it was either that, or my dad will lock me in a suitcase so i would feel how the turts live in a tank... o_0)
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My "babies" :
1.0.0 Indo BTS (Tiliqua gigas gigas)
0.0.1 Rainbow skinks (Mabuya multifasciata)
0.0.3 RES (Trachemys scripta elegans)
0.0.4 Amboina box turtles (Cuora amboinensis)
1.0.0 Chinese softshell (Trionyx sinensis)
1.0.0 Asian leaf turtle (Cyclemys dentata)
1.0.0 Leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius)
And still growing...

You can only sex them when they start to develop their sexual characteristics (long nails etc.)

As far as diet you are doing fine just add some leafy greens (turnip green, dandelion green, chicory or escarole, java fern or water hyacinth) to the water and eventually they will start to accept it. They tend to eat more greens as they start maturing and pretty much all protein as youngsters. It is not unusual for one animal to grow faster than another. Then all of a sudden the smaller ones will start to catch up.

It's not really possible to sex sliders at a young age. When they're older, the males will have longer claws, the opening on their tail is farther away from the shell. The females have a more concave plastron.

bbw could you please tell me what kind of fish food you use? I want my turtles to have better colorings too ^.^

Well, its just a theory i read from a page on the net (a loooong time ago, it had something to do with some ingredients used in fish food), but i use "Beauty" fish food. Basically, almost any type of fish food works fine with the turts (especially the ones that are "supposed" to enhance fish colouration). I've found out that my turts that ate the fish food had really nice colouration. My babies still have their bright markings, and my amboina boxies colouration really showed, contrasting black and yellow markings, while my softshell had a faint orange bellie, wich was a beautiful sight. But always have a varied proper diet, and plenty of sunshine, so the turts can show off their true colours ^^.
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My "babies" :
1.0.0 Indo BTS (Tiliqua gigas gigas)
0.0.1 Rainbow skinks (Mabuya multifasciata)
0.0.3 RES (Trachemys scripta elegans)
0.0.4 Amboina box turtles (Cuora amboinensis)
1.0.0 Chinese softshell (Trionyx sinensis)
1.0.0 Asian leaf turtle (Cyclemys dentata)
1.0.0 Leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius)
And still growing...