Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Several years ago my wife got me an RES for christmas; he was a fresh hatchling, no bigger than a silver dollar. I've kept him since then, but he just hasn't gotten as big as I thought red ears did (based on the ones I see in ponds locally).

He's about the size of a decent sized saucer but not the size of a dinner plate--maybe 6-7" across? He's a bigger than my hand but not by too much. I've had UV on him the whole time, and I have tried to feed a varied diet.

When he was real little I ground up pellets and did those (dusted with calcium and vitamins) and fruit flies. When a bit bigger I moved him to whole pellets, rosy red minnows, and grated veggies and fruit.
Nowdays he mostly eats pellets and veggies (a mix of berries, apples, spinach,grapes, etc) and the odd snail but seems to ignore fish most of the time (although I do keep feeder minnows in there, I only have to replenish them once a month or so). I still dust but not ever feeding.
I've always kept a haulout but it has changed from a floating "turtle log' that zoo med makes to a large piece of cork over the last couple of years. He has a basking spot, and a pair of 4' UV lights on him. The basking spot is in the mid 80's, the water temp is basically room temp. I keep an external power filter for filtration. I've figured he's probably male due to the tail and elongated claws and the plastron shape, so I know he won't get giant, but I was under the impression he should be bigger than he is now; am I mistaken,or am I screwing up care somewhere, or does it just take longer? He's probaby 4 years old now.

average size for a male is 8 inches. hes fine

thanks. I'm just a bit paranoid about my care for him. He was a surprise so the first month or so I had him I was doing research and making mistakes. And I'm still paranoid that I screwed up during that time and messed up my poor Suetonius for life.

Using a heater is the fastest way to increase their growth. I'd had a res turn to about the size of a football within two years.

I actually had a question about water heaters--I had one in with him until he was maybe 5", but he broke that one going after fish, and he's busted two more since, so I'd given up using them. I tried protecting them with rocks, but that didn't work too well because in order to get enough rocks around it to protect it, i blocked off a lot of the current...so I had a 3" circle of VERY warm water that he couldn't get to, and no circulation to mix it in...any ideas on how to stop him busting them??

And I do use a basking heat lamp

I had that problem with breaking heaters to. I took a piece of pvc pipe, drilled a %$#@ load of holes in it and slid the heater into it.No broken heaters anymore.

I would forget the heater! Why anyone would want their
turtle to grow so rapidly is beyond me. Fast growth is
not normal for them and more than likely can result in
problems with health as they age. Think about it! Turtles
live a very long time and in the wild they grow slowly.

A good rule of thumb is an inch or so per year.

Here is one of my turtles, my female which I have
had since a hatchling. She is 9 years old, about
10-12 inches shell length and 2.5-3 lbs.

Hope this helps
Linda

Sounds like he's living the good life to me. You could probably MAKE him grow faster, but I can't think of any health benefits he would gain. Giving animals as presents is usually a bad thing EXCEPT for this turtle! A caring responsible concerned owner is more than most pets ever get.

It sounds like your turtle is ok, not huge, but probably not something you need to be too concerned with.

But, something I caught that could be bad for his longterm health; you said you feed him spinich. This stuff is ok in really small amounts but if it is a large part of his diet it can result in a ton of problems. The problem with spinich is that it "sucks" a lot of the calcium in the body out for whatever reason, so this could be one of the reasons why your guy is not as big as you'de like him to be. If you stop feeding him this that should be enough to fix it, and I would also dust with Rep-cal or whateve calcium supplement you use a little more frequently, just so you can catch him up to speed.
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A room of herps.
www.freewebs.com/kapoktree

There are plenty of unbreakable heaters out there, and I wouldn't give up on this essential point. Your turtles' water temps should be a constant 28 degrees. If not, it could lead to health problems, particularly resiratory ones. This is especially true if you don't have a basking light either. What's more, warm temps will increase its diet intake.

I've read all the responses, and decided to not worry too much about his growth rate. I've also cut down on spinach as part of his diet. He does have a basking spot as well, so I'm not terribly worried, and his fecals have been clean so I know it isn't parasites or anything.

Now my only problem is keeping his filter clean...good lord power filters get clogged quick with turtle mess!