Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Recently my 10 year old male and female red-bellied sliders have been acting very strangly. I put a new rock in their 55 gal. aquarium so the female could climb up on it. She is absolutley huge, like the size of a pro football huge, and the rock is the only thing that she could get out of the water on. My dad's been sick since sunday and is off work and lies on the couch all day and says he hasn't seen her get off the rock since he's been sick and that she hasn't eaten any pellets. The male just swims against the glass most of the day kicking up rocks nonstop and occasionally take breaks on his turtle dock. My dad says he hasn't seen him eat anything in the past few days either. Are they hibernating? because i don't have a water heater in their aquarium but they've never had one and haven't acted like this ever before. Anyone know whats going on or know how to help?

They wouldn't be moving around if they were hibernating. What's your water temperature without a heater?
What do you feed them? Maybe they're bored with the food, my turtles get bored very quickly with some foods. I never feed them the same thing twice in a row for many reasons.. they need variety for better health for one thing but boredom is also one of the reasons I feed a variety.

Sometimes they'll behave strangely when something new is added to the environment, in this case it's a rock. Some turtles need to get used to something new for a week or so before they're comfortable with it.

When it comes to hibernating it needs to be an all or nothing thing. By that I mean hibernate them or don't hibernate them but don't keep the temps so low that they do neither. A low temp that keeps them in sort of a limbo state where they aren't actually hibernating but aren't actually fully awake either will lead to illness.
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PHRatz

Well i just changed the water about 2 hours ago so the temp will be above normal. Right now its about 74F. I'll tell you what the temp is tomorrow. You were right about me not varying the diet. I haven't been mixing it up as much as i usually do and i'll start to do it more.

I just noticed one interesting thing. Right now both turtles are floating in the water together and all the male is trying to do is climb up on the female's back! He's trying to mate! He climbs up on her back and does this fluttery claw thing in front of her face. I think she's getting sick of his attempts to mate and since only one of them can sit on the rock at a time she's trying to get away from him by sitting on the rock all the time. Do you think this is what's making them act weird?