Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I found 1 of my hatchlings floating in the water this morning.I noticed that it had been staying out of the water the past 3 days. It probably died the night before after a cool front came thru. Then about 1pm. i noticed another laying on it's carapace on the bottom of the tank. As i retrieved it there was hardly any sign of life. After putting it in a empty tank it started moving ever so slowly. After an hour it was walking sluggishly. I put all 4 remaining ones in peat moss to night. Two things i've also noticed that their shells have gotten white-ish lately and their plastron has sunk in a little. I feed them daily and they are kept outdoors and are in about 10 inches of water and have a large basking turtle cliff w/filter. Please help!!!

Really sorry to hear you lost your woods.

I don't have as much experience with woods as spotteds and boxes, but they are all very similar when it comes to swimming... and drowning.

In my spotted enclosures, the thing that I spend the most time worrying about in the design is the drowning potential. They usually swim fine... like fish... but sometimes they get to the bottom without their lungs full of air, and they sit there like stones. The only way they can get air is to walk toward the surface at the edge. If the sides are too steep, they just scramble in place until they drown. And the slope doesn't have to be too steep if it's smooth. It's amazing how terrible they are at moving up a smooth, gentle slope.

I tend to do the following:
1)Don't make the water too deep. Ideally, a foot or two is plenty. Don't try to keep these turtles in a goldfish pond. Make it a bog.
2)Keep the slopes gradual. Really gradual.
3)If you're using a liner, put sideways wrinkles in it for grip.
4)Keep plenty of submerged rocks, branches, and plants for climbing.
5)Keep hatchlings in a small setup until they are at least an inch or two. In a big outdoor enclosure, they tend to get "lost". It's hard to keep track of them, and they sometimes end up in a corner buried until they dry out. If you have a really well-planted natural enclosure, it's different. If they hatch in there, they will probably get along fine as if they are wild. Actually, my biggest problem is finding and catching all of the "wild" babies each year.

I lost 1, but the second hatchling fully recovered that night. Something stunned those two and were unable to come up for air. They were in 10 inches of water. I removed the "turtle cliff", and now they're in one inch of water. I might put them in my 100 gal. terrarium with my gulf coast box hatchlings. So to recap; 1) Drop in temperature might have stunned them? 2) Held under by one of the suction (5 total) holes?

Based on the recommendations of experienced stewards of this species, I kept my hatchlings in water that was just deep enough for them to reach the surface when standing on tippee toes. This was about 2" when they were tiny. This depth would also allow them to easily right themselves if flipped over in the water. I did this by adding a lot of gravel to the tank when they were new, thereby "bringing the bottom up" and removing gravel as they grew to make the water deeper.
I also have no "traps" in their enclosures. Nothing with holes that they could lodge in, (eg cinder blocks) or get sucked against. Good luck.