Reptile & Amphibian Forums

eastern, striped, and yellows... they are so cool! can someone give me some hints on enclosure set ups? I have long style sweater boxes. I read how terrestrial easterns and stripes are, but and even yellows seem to not be good swimmers..

what kind of substrate do ya'll use, what is the water depth, anh plants or rocks? shelters?

any help is appreciated but i am busting right now!!!

How many turtles did you get? I wouldn't put too many males from eaxh species together. Also, don't put a lot of males with a small amount of females b/c they could hound them to death for mating reasons. I would say maybe 3-4 turtles per tank(maybe 55 gallons or larger). I have an eastern mud and a common musk and I use gravel for a substrate. Rocks were piled up so that they would have a hiding place and a place to get outta the water. I wouldn't put more then 6-7" of water in each tank if they're adults. If they're hatchlings, I'd say go with 3-4" of water. You can feed them worms, minnows, Reptomin, shrimp, and other various cooked meats. If you want to explore more on them, go to this website(www.austinsturtlepage.com) and look under "caresheets". It'll list the species that you have and give info on keeping them.
O yea, if you don't have enough room for them, you can send em my way hehe.

Thanks man. I have only two males together, and males are kept separate from teh females. i have them in these large plastic storage bins which are 25 gallons. So mud turtles dont need a land section at all? just a little place to get out of the water for basking or whatever? what about filtration?

i can't believe how little the hatchlings are......

They do need a land area of some sort. you could use sand or a 50/50 dirt/potting soil mix too. If the females are gravid, they might lay their eggs in the sand or dirt mixture. It is amazing how little these guys are when they start out as hatchlings. Sure you don't need to relocate some? LOL.

Aren't they the cutest hatchlings you've ever seen? Please try to get some pictures of them so we can see them too.
Good luck with them!
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PHRatz

Thanks, I will soon.

I have a few questions though: how warm should they bed? do they need a basking light? what food do ya'll give them? they seem to like pellets, and the babies i feed bloodworms and tubifex worms... one of my yearling yellows has a shut eye but he does open it but i dont know what that could be due to. he seems to be eating though.

i have them in myh apartment and it gets pretty warm during the day even without a supplemental heat source, such as a baskign light

I keep my mud's water between 80-85. I know that seems a little too warm but he's from a very warm climate where the water outside would be at least that warm. When I've tried lowering the water temp he becomes very sluggish. I do use a submersible heater for him, it's an Ebo-Jager brand. I've not tried the titanium heaters but I hear they are wonderful.
Since yours are musk, not mud like mine but are babies 78-80 is probably a good temp; however, it'll be nice if some of the musk keepers will pop on here & respond to you.
My mud loves to eat anything live, roaches, crickets, fish, mealworms, earthworms, grub worms, bloodworms. I tried live tubifex worms once, he didn't care for those.
I also use the frozen fish food cubes, I thaw them in warm water before I give them to him, he likes brine shrimp for a treat, he likes th frozen bloodworms too but I've found he didn't care for the glass worms, plankton, or.. there was another I tried that he didn't like I don't recall what that was. May have been blackworms or krill.
I'm sure some of these other people here will have some advice for ya, right?
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PHRatz

Ok Ok sorry.. I don't know where I left my brain this morning. You have MUD turtles, not MUSK.
Geeze I need to slap some cold water on & wake up I guess! LOL
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PHRatz

>>one of my yearling yellows has a shut eye but he does open it but i dont know what that could be due to. he seems to be eating though.

What is he eating? If his food doesn't have enough natural vitamin A in it that might cause his eyes to shut. Time to nip that in the bud before it becomes a real problem that requires a vet.
The answer though isn't to give a whole bunch of vitamin A from a bottle to him. Because it's a fat soluble vitamin if he gets too much of it, it can cause way more harm than good.
Can you possibly get him to eat dark leafy greens like turnips or yellow veggies like butternut squash?
If not maybe the Reptotreat Suprema that has beta carotene added would help.
Another way to get a dose of vitamins into them is to use a liquid reptile multi-vitamin. If you use a multi-vitamin once a week you aren't going to overdose him on the A vitamin.
With a liquid you can inject the vitamins into a freeze dried cube of either tubifex worms or brine shrimp & he'll (hopefully) eat that in the water.
The freeze dried cubes IMO are not a good food for them to be fed on a regular basis but if your only purpose for using them is to get a once a week dose of vitamins into them, then it's a handy food.
If you could get him to consume foods that are naturally high in vitamin A that would go a long way in stopping any problems from happening.
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PHRatz

PHR,

Yea, i have all muds, not musks.... i'm pretyt sure both yearling yellow are eating. they love the thawed out blood worms. do you think they can catch small feeder fish?

i'll look into the multivitamin thing. it's only one eye shut, not both, buit i have seen him with the eye open. im thinking i have to raise the temperature for starters.

my menagerie is growing-- i just got mypair of yearling tokay geckos today!!

do you think they can catch small feeder fish?
>>
When my mud was a hatchling he did have a hard time catching fish. I found that if I bought lots & lots of fish he could easily pick off a few in a crowd but as they thinned out they were too fast for him. Horrible thing to do from the fish's point of view but if we would maim the fish he could then catch them. If you kill the fish for them then freshly killed worked out. I didn't like to do it but my DH didn't mind, to him it was no different than baiting a hook.

>>i'll look into the multivitamin thing. it's only one eye shut, not both, buit i have seen him with the eye open. im thinking i have to raise the temperature for starters.
>>
>>my menagerie is growing-- i just got mypair of yearling tokay geckos today!!

Congrats on the Tokays! Watch your fingers
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PHRatz

LOL, there's not way i am parting with these guys/ girls

I still dotn know what kiklled my tutrtles