Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Yesterday when I was refilling my M.M's tank, she came trotting out of her hidebox and stood under the stream of water with obvious happiness. When I turned the water off, she ran right back to the hidebox. It was so cute that I want to clean the tank every day now. I haven't noticed any scratching or rubbing behavior... is it possible that she just enjoys this? A mysterious turtle thing? I was refilling the tank a bit faster and the water was a bit colder than usual.
(I'm not a big anthropomorphizer, but I think reptiles can experience rudiments of the emotion 'hey, that's pretty good'.)

Reptiles do respond to stimulus. Maybe she's telling you that her water is a bit warm. There is natural variance in a wild habitat between temperatures and PH so I like to vary it in captivity also. To much of one side of the scale on either of those can be stressing. I'd try cooling and heating the water a few degrees here and there for some variety. You could do the same with PH, but make sure the changes are in very small incraments as big changes can stress too.

Matthew

Now that you mention it, I just checked and I think her heater is miscalabrated... the actual water temp is 83, but the heater was set to 78 and was on. I turned it down .
The pH is supposed to be quite important to this species so I keep it buffered at 6.5.

You should keep the PH at around 4.5 in my opinion. this is were most keepers keep it and is nice and low like found in the wild. I've heard that at some spots where matas are found the ph is 3.5. Supposedly the bodies of water where matas are found get a lot of rain water run off with a lot of leaves and other organic material in it. Leaves and such have a lot of tannins in them which explains the low PH. Over the long haul I belive your mata will do better with a ph from 4.5-5.5.

BTW how old is he/she and where did you get him? Do you have any pics.

I have a WC male that is about 7 inches long

Matthew

... my pH tester only goes down to 6....
He's about 9 inches long and was found at a petstore.

If I were you I'd buy one of those electronic ph monitors from dr foster and smith or Big Al's. They run about 200 bucks but are well worth it. In the long run your turtle will benefit from the lower ph.

Matthew