Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm pre-apologizing for not having any pictures !
Sorry.
Also for a long post.

Anyway...when I got my little "leucistic" alligator snapper from Jon a few years ago...I remember reading Steves post, that when he fed his pink food like Krill...the turtle got a much redder/pink cast.I tried that and it worked a little

Well after two years..my little guy has lost almost any pink/red cast. Mostly now just a cream/yellow look to it. Top and Bottom. Almost like a beige I guess.

( I've posted before that mine is especially not-aggressive towards food. Very slow growing and also more delicate health wise. I talked to Jon about this last week and he agreed that this is typical. Mine has been doing better now that I separated him and he doesn't compete for food.)

Anyway...Most of my real knowledge is with tropical fish breeding. Not turtles. So a few months ago...I decide to breed some bettas just for fun. Though my daughter would get a kick out of it.They are fairly easy to breed. SUPER small fry...but hardy and they produce TONS of young if you know what you're doing.
Out of two pair...I got over 400 baby bettas.
But when they start to grow over 1/2" ...they start beating the crap out of each other. You either have to put them all in separate bowls..or start culling them out. And with over 400..there's a lot of weaker color ones that are easy to get rid of.
So i started feeding them to my smaller snappers...especially the leucistic.
( By the way...the bettas were perfect food. They're about 1" long now. And they're so arrogant of a fish they almost go right in the turtle mouth. Not skiddish at all.)
Now one of the breeder pairs of betttas were super-red cambodians. Almost a deep red velvet color. Very red and very bright. They produced babies that were a really intense red.
So yesterday I'm cleaning the leucistic tank...and I can't believe it !
After 3 weeks of these guys...he has tons of pink/red cast back. Its amazing.His whole underside and especially the underside of all 4 legs is so different than it was a few weeks ago. I've been really busy at work..so I never noticed. I've just been throwing in a couple dozen of the bettas every few days. Mostly the reds.
Its drastic how his color has changed.
Wish I could produce some kind of large red food fish.

Anyway...thought it was pretty interesting and sorry for no pictures.
Mike

Thats interesting Mike, I'll have to give bettas a try to see what happens. But I'm hoping mine turns yellow instead of pinker. I'm trying to get a few of John's pinkskins this year and I'll probably do like you had to do and seperate them so they'll eat better. Anyways goodluck.

OK! I'm walking out the door in a sec. do just a quick note for now~ I'll something more later on this topic...
MIKE we need pics of the Leucistic.

Maybe you can post an idiot guide to breeding beta's??
A "1,2,3," kinda thing perhaps? That would be really cool!

What would BLUE do?

Turtlesox and I were talking about this exact topic yesterday.
I'll be back later.

CJ

I also have a small yearling "leucistic," that I purchased from Richard's turtle farm. It's really pink in the legs and neck, and really white on the head. It's shell is bone colored for the most part. I've been working on an existing algae condition since I received him, not a big deal, but it did cover alot of his shell color when I got him. After getting most of the algae off I was pleasantly surprised at how light it was. I changed the wood stump out for a really big plastic one with lots of hiding places and "fishing," spots.
The real tree stunp that I had in there released a lot of tannins thus making my water changes more frequent. It was super light in color. The new plastic stump is much darker in color and now the turtle's shell is getting darker. This change has happened in just a couple weeks. He still has nearly white colorings on the shell, but the darker parts of the shell appear getting darker.

Environment, and food intake seem to affect these guys coloring~
Not as quick as a chameleon, but color changes do appear to be happening. Turtlesox keeps her turtles in White plastic tanks.
All of her turtles are golden phase, and most have pink & caramel colored skin. Hmmmmm.....

Someone posted here not too long ago that they were going to keep their turtles in different colored tanks to see how it affected the turtles coloring. If you're reading this and you conducted the experiments~ please share how the results have turned out so far.

CJ

CJ- I bought a 75lb yellow turtle from Concordia turtle farm several years ago. He was put in a black stock tank that I spray painted yellow. A few days after,his skin turned a roasted marshmellow black. When he shed this off in a few days his skin and shell were a darker tone. Somewhere between yellow and brownish red. Till finally he stayed brownish red. This made me think the PH played a roll in this change. He had been in a pond with other yellow turtles where the mud was a yellowish white in Lousiana. To top this off Jesse Evans of Concordia told me that these snappers were normal colored when they were put in the pond 10 years ago. I'm surprised that there isn't much research done on snappers. The person with the most knowledge is John Richards. Maybe he could give some information.

I agree that PH has a lot to do with it. Most alligator snappers are found in pretty acidic water thats generated from rotting wood and vegetation. Perhaps this is why they are so dark. For the last year I have been keeping mine in a plain plastic container. He is currently a light greyish pink color. I am considering putting driftwood back into the tub to see if it has any effect.

This betta thing intrigues me. I just might have to try that. In fact, I think I will go to my local fish store to see if I can order them in bulk.
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1.1 Womas, 1.0 Australian Olive Python, 1.0 Centralian Carpet Python, 1.0 Jungle Carpet Python, 1.1 Cape York Spotted Pythons, 1.0 Australian Water Python, 1.0 Albino Green Burmese, 1.1 Loxocemus bicolor (New World "Pythons" ), 1.2 Peruvian Red-Tail Boas, 2.1 Hog Island Boas, 0.1 Belem Brazilian Red- Tail Boa, 0.0.1 North American Wood Turtle, 0.0.2 European Pond Turtles, 1.0 Leucistic Alligator Snapper, 0.0.1 FL Red Belly, 0.0.1 Concentric Diamondback Terrapin, 1.3 Crested Geckos, 1.0 Yellow Ackie, 1.0 Yellow Bearded Dragon

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I've been keeping this turtle in a bare 10gal aquarium I painted the sides,bottom,and back white on the outsides. I am moving him into a 40gal aquarium next week. No eating problems here, he is starting to eat adult mice with no problem.

WOW! Steve that's an Ogre!
Is that from Turtleman, or Turtlesox?
Thanks for posting pics!

CJ

he is almost a yearling now. i got him from p&j's last year.

Here are pictures of one of one my pinks with a light golden shell. My turtles are all in white plastic tanks and they have keep light colored skin and golden shells.

That's a pretty turtle Martha. He will have a nice yellow shell when he grows bigger. Mine has a brown carapace. I'm not so sure how he will turn out but its fun raising them.

Thanks, Steve Your turtle looks to be about the same size as my turtle he is a little over 5". One things that I have noticed is the color of your turtles nose is pink. Most of my turtles have a dark nose even though most have light skin, shells and very light plastron. Some also have very dark lures, dark purple to almost black.

maybe I should name him Rudolf. LOL

Thanks, Steve Your turtle looks to be about the same size as my turtle he is a little over 5". One things that I have noticed is the color of your turtles nose is pink. Most of my turtles have a dark nose even though most have light skin, shells and very light plastron. Some also have very dark lures, dark purple to almost black.