painted turtle care and needs?
by Aquaboy on Saturday, May 8th, 2010 | 5 Comments
I am planing on getting a painted turtle. I actually have good knowledge of the complicated things to do like health wise( removing old scoots…) but i don’t really have that much basic knowledge on their practical needs. I have a 30 gallon bow front aquarium. what decor should i use, live plants? What should i feed him, how warm the water should be and is their any sort of chloramines i need to detoxify. how high should the water level be too. Help or tips on anything would be great. How should i use the lighting? Filtration. Thanks.
painted turtle caresheet below. you should know everything you need to know before you get the turtle.
Your tank will be fine until your turtle’s shell exceeds 3″. Forget the plants. They will be uprooted and trampled first, eaten when the turtle gets big enough to appreciate plant material. Young turtles, like young children, do not eat their veggies. The difference is that the turtles are smarter. They need a high-protein diet for growth. Feed them earthworms, fishes, soft-bodied insects, strips of liver dusted with bone meal, and other unprocessed meat.
Contact your water company about how they treat the water that you receive. If you live near the plant, chlorine levels will be quite high because they have to maintain a minimum level to the taps at the far end of the mains. You may be able to get rid of chlorine by just letting the water sit for a day in a tub or bucket.
The water level should be deep enough for the turtle to swim and shallow enough, at least in one place, to allow the turtle to stand and still stick its nose out to breathe. A ramp will take care of that.
Get a filter rated for twice the size of your tank, at a minimum. That way, you will have to change the water less often. Keeping the tank as bare as possible will help too. Gravel is especially dangerous for that and other reasons.
You should have a heat light (incandescent) and a UVB light over the basking site. They should be turned off at night.
water level should be 2 times the shell length or just enough to where if they fall on their back they can flip over. you should get a water heater and a thermometer for the water and keep it at 78-85 degrees
you can feed them squash, cantolope, romain lettus, reptomin, crickits(pinhead or gutloaded), feeder fish, rosie minnow. you should also mix up their diet every few days. get a uvb light.
Remember 10 gallons for every inch of turtle. I have used kiddy pools and plastic pond liners from most nurseries and now a 150 gal pond.
They need normal tap water. NO chemicals but amquel for the feeder fish so they don’t die. Turtles need no conditioners but proper diet.
They are the coolest. Not cuddly pets at all. And a life time commitment.
Plants will be eaten and dug up looking for worms and bugs as they do in the wild.
Sliders, cooters , painted, map, yellow bellied all are basically the same and require the same basic care.
For their needed protein and calcium drop 20 or so feeder guppies, goldfish or minnows in the tank and watch them disappear in a few days! When I got these two 36 yrs ago all we had in back then were goldfish to feed , so after 36 yrs and still going strong. They can eat goldfish!
This way when they swim for their dinner they get exercise also! TOSS in a bird cuttle bone in the water for calcium that will promote better shell growth, it will dissolve real slow and if they eat it that’s fine!!
They can have garden worms, meal worms, snails, crickets, flies, crayfish small frogs, slugs, tadpoles dragon flies and anything that moves, but only as a treat.
They need leafy greens Romaine, Butter lettuce. (Iceberg and cabbage are bad for them, any other leafy greens will do) for vitamin A that they need at least 3 to 4 times a week.
They love grapes and strawberries and squash..
Did you know that they need to bask under a reptile light UVA/UVB for up to 8 hrs a day for the vitamin D that they need to grow. So that means getting a turtle dock also.
Leave the heater on 75 to 78 degrees always.
These turtles in captivity do not hibernate their eating may slow down some but they will not hibernate.
These are not cuddly pets and will bite very very hard.
Under 4″ they carry a disease called ‘salmonella’. So you must wash after every handling. These guys can become cannibalistic and will kill the smallest turtle if there is not enough room and food.
And my pictures don’t lie. All ages and all sizes get along as long as their is allot for swim room and plenty to eat!
Their water needs to be clean otherwise they get sick easily from dirty water cause they poop allot.
**You need a good filter system!
Total Body length: 5-8″ average for males, up to 12 inches max for females. Life span: 15-25+ years
Males have the longer front nails and are used in mating. And are considered mature at about 5 yrs old. You can’t start sexing till about 3” across.
Gravel larger than they can swallow.
They sleep at the bottom of rivers, streams. lakes or ponds or your tank to avoid predators like coyotes, foxes, owls, hawks, possums, raccoons and even some wide mouth bass and us humans.
You probably already know that they get sick easily, shell rot, respiratory sickness, lopsided swimming, coughing, blowing bubbles from their nose. Fungus white cotton patches on their skin?
**Swollen cloudy eyes which means lacking in Vitamin A. Which we all need for good eyes. Google ‘vegetables with Vitamin A.
Contact the “www.anapsid.org/societies, for a turtle vet / RESCUE in your city and state. I wish you luck.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29035692@N03/sets/72157607029550534/
They can have garden worms, meal worms, snails, crickets, flies, crayfish small frogs, slugs, tadpoles dragon flies and anything that moves, but only as a treat.
They need leafy greens Romaine, Butter lettuce. (Iceberg and cabbage are bad for them, any other leafy greens will do) for vitamin A that they need at least 3 to 4 times a week.
They love grapes and strawberries and squash
mark k