Reptile & Amphibian Forums

can i keep a baby turtle and a baby RES in a 29 gallon tank together?if not,why?

You should be able to keep RES's and painteds together with no problems what so ever.

i kept mine together when they were little and they were fine. The only problem i had was that the res grew faster then the painted, and the res started to try and bite the painted. So they had to be seperated. It should be fine while their bother still little.

as long as they are similar in size they should be okay. sometimes when they grow at different rates they may even stay together peacefully. get them together now if they are of similar size. always keep an eye out for any signs of aggression, remember that you may not actually watch the aggression. the back of the neck, legs, and tails are usually the targets of aggressive biting.

I currently keep an Eastern Painted Turtle and a Red Eared Slider together and I haven't seen any problems with the two. It is of pure nature that the RES will be a bit nippy. Just make sure that it isn't taken too far. A small bite is common and as long as he isn't putting a lot of force into it, then there shouldnt be anything to worry about.

JMO
Chris

my painteds were always worse than my RES. thats why i had to remove them when they started to bite the backs of the necks of the RES.

That's pretty interesting to hear as I have also experienced the same thing with my painteds. My male painted turtles clearly were the more aggressive animals. I had to remove them from my pond because they were nippy and would even grab the female painteds leaving them with some nasty neck bites.

It just goes to show you that there may be a general behavior that is one specie exhibits but each animal does not necessarily "Read the Rulebook".

Steve

One thing no one has mentioned is the size of the tank. a 29 gallon will only last until each turtle is about and inch and a half. The rule is 10 gallons per inch of turtle. I would look into getting a larger tank.
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TurtsandTorts Discussion Group
2 Russians (Harley and Marley)
2 RES (Sunny and Fatty)
2 Gerbils (Sydney and Vienna)
1 Cat (Abby)

You know it's funny. I am from Europe and we have " L -liter" and cm/m/km . Iwas always taught/and read about/that the apropriate size of akvarium for fish is 1L for 1cm of fish and 1l for 1cm of a turtle. Just when I got here to US I noticed difference. Here it's 1gal per fish/turtle!

for comparison:
1" is cca 1.7cm
1Gal is cca 4L

What do you think?

In all actuality this is a a way of giving folks a ball park figure of how big a space they should have.

Truth be know it should be more about lenth width and depth of an environment than number of gallons. Tanks come is all shapes and sizes. There are long sytles, high stiles, tower tanks all of which hold the same number of gallons but are vary greatly in the amount of space the a turtle can has to move around in.

For example. Say you have 184 gallons of water volume. This would mean by that you can only have roughly 2 adult female sliders.

A rectangular pond that is 7 feet long x 3.5 feet wide x 1 foot deep is 184 gallons. You certainly could fit more than 2 female adult sliders in a pond that size without having them bump into eachother.

Point is that this rule is just a sort of guideline for people to ensure they make enough room for their animals.

Common sense would dictate that a tower tank would be too short for a large turtle and just because the gallonage is right doesn't mean that it is big enough to house the animal properly.

I hope this made sense. It's been a long day.

Steve

yes that makes sense, Steve
You are right once again. I didn't believe I get such a great answer. Actually that is what I wanted to hear
Thanks

Katy

i agree. i think for juvenile turtles a 40 breeder is better than a 55. and a 55 "gallon" tank with turtles usually has far from 55 gallons of water in it.

isnt 1" 2.5cm?

Yes you right! My mistake. 1" - 2.4cm
Sorry for that.