Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i was a member of kingsnake.com for many years when i had a burmese python and it is a great site
now i've got 2 REDs

i've had a male and a female for 2yrs since they were just a couple weeks old. everything's gone great this whole time. but for the last 2-3 weeks the male is constantly resting out of the water. not to bask under the heat lamp. he hangs out on the cool side "float". pretty much all day and night. after a feeding he swims for a while but then right back out of the water. has he got the "itch" and is trying to dry out to shed his scutes? the female has grown very quickly and she almost never has basked. i know what reptile-RI looks like and there's no signs of that so far.
I'm very worried. Does anybody have any comments?
THANKS FOR ANY HELP

If the female is growing very fast, is she larger than the male? RES can be real tank bullies sometimes.

How often is water changed, maybe something has happened to quality of the water that just does not bother the female? Sliders are pretty darn hardy though so I doubt this would be the case, though it could be, so still worth a check.

Is anything else kept in the water with the turtles such as fish?

Another thing is maybe it is just a phase. I have seen captive and wild sliders and cooters that were healthy do some out-of-nature things such as sitting out-of-water on a cold and cloudy day with no sunlight during the day prior.

As far as a shed, from the sliders I have kept, RESs and YBSs the turtles still spend a fair amount of time in the water.

My biggest bet though, if the female is larger than the male, is tank bully. If she is outgrowing him he could be intimidated by her and trying to stay away. I would watch for this carefully and if it proves to be an issue either divide the tank or provide a 2nd one for one of them. With the turtles that are kept where I work we frequently have to put one in our outdoor pond because it got large fast and took over, or put one in a different tank because it is not growing fast enough and is being out-competed by all the other turtles.