Anybody here have pet turtles?

Seattle206

Seattle206

lets get blown...
Oct 27, 2004
109
0
0
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Seattle, WA
I kinda feel like buying a turtle for some reason. I was at a pet shop eariler today with my friend. While she was looking at her cat stuff I was wandering around. I saw these snapping turtles for $25 and were about 8-14 inches long. I remember seeing these turtles on that steve corwin show on animal planet and they seemed very cool. Anybody else here own turtles?
 
I did at one time have a red eared silder when I was a child. I see them now in pet stores and can't help but love their cute faces. One thing I wouldn't suggest is getting a snapping turtle as a pet, their very aggresive and can cause really nasty injuries. The slider species and other aquatic species should do fine though, as long as their in a seperate tank from your fish. Thy can dirty up the water easliy with the waste they produce, but as long as you either have a good filter or do decent water changes it should work out well. Some turtles also might need a bit of land or rocks to come out on. Make sure you have heat gradient in the tank, and that the tank size will be big enough for the animal/s when they are full grown. Do your research! :)
Sorry if I blabbed a bit too much, but I hope this info is helpful to you.
 
my sister got a baby red eared slider and it was in a 5 gallon, then a 10 gallon, now a 20 gallon, and it will be needing a new tank anytime now. If you get one i sugest you start out with a 40 gallon long so you dont keep buying tanks. You will also need something for the turtle to get completely out of the water and underneath the heat lamp. But care wise they are very easy to fead and with anunder gravel filter using a power head and since they breath out of the water and have no gills you dont have to worry about ammonia or any of that crap.
 
im thinking about getting an alligator snapper too. they look like little dinosaurs when they are small with the long tails. otherwise i would want to save up and get a fly river turtle for my 180.
 
I have 2 pignosed turtles which are about 1 ft mixed with my arowana and siamese tiger a while back. They cant mix well with their own species, but quite allright with the fishes. They're quite nippy though, even bite off my powerhead wires.
 
We had several red-ears when we lived down in Texas-you could find them at the farm tailwater pits, etc. They went from being about the size of quarters to the size of baseballs! Ate like pigs-anything they could get their beaks on-they would even snap at my fingers if I put my fingertip up against the glass (which was great fun-they'd push themselves backwards in the water).
They do grow like weeds-and I remember one of them, when he was very little, tried to take a chunk out of my stepdaugher's finger; well, she would pick the thing up & tap it on the nose-what did she expect?? Didn't draw blood, but boy, did she yelp!
 
We have a three toed box turtle, who I have owned for 21 years, Cracker Jack has been around longer than my husband. We also have a year old Midland Painted Turtle who my son caught as a hatchling last year. For lots more information go to www.turtleforum.com. It has lots of info including selecting your first turtle! I love turtles and have owned them most of my life.
 
i have two central american wood turtles. they're great! they're semi-aquatic. so their tank is mostly peat moss and the other half is a 3 inch deep bowl. www.turtletimes.com is also a great website to find info on turtles.
i would advise against getting an alligator snapper unless you're planning on having a huge pond in your backyard and arent afraid of being bitten....
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alligator snappers eat ALOT and are aggressive buggers. they are cool looking, but require a lot of care. they're not for the novice turtle owner.
turtles as a whole require lots of care and each species has it's own needs. please research before you buy, just as you would with fish.
for example, my turtles are actually carnivorous. they do get some vegetable matter, but they eat mostly meat. and they require a UV lamp, a heat lamp, a basking area, certain kinds of substrate (some substrates are not suitable for turtles or reptiles)...and the list goes on. my turtle setup costed me twice as much as my 29 gal fish tank set up!
 
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I'm going to agree with other people here about not going with the snapper. They get big, and they're aggressive, and they need a huge cage.

And wow for keeping turtles with fish, I had a red eared slider and I bought a pleco for him, and it took him a month before he caught it and ate it.

Red eared sliders are cool turtles, but they need a big tank. They can get to be a foot long (biggest one I've ever seen anyway). They're cool because if the tank is big enough you can keep more than one. Also you can let them go outside and stuff in warm weather, which is fun. You need to watch them though cuz they're fast little buggers. I took my eyes off mine for like 5 minutes and later found him making his way down the alley. Anyways definately do some research. Books are great, there's a book, I think it's called the exotic pet handbook, I'm not sure, I'm in the process of moving and it's at my other house right now. It's a good book though if you can find it, it's green and white and has a praying mantis on the cover along with a few other exotic "creep crawly" types of pets. It basically has a bunch of different kinds of bugs, reptiles and amphibians and gives them a page each and lists care difficulty, if they're ok in groups or not, what type of set up they need, that type of thing.

Sorry about the length, and I hope you find a turtle that's good for you. I've recently been looking at mud turtles and think I might start trying to find some.
 
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