Gravel and plants?....

[karen3turtles]

Hi, I am new to the forum and have a couple of questions as my pet shop is rubbish, and havnt informed me very much regarding the care of my Yellow Belly Sliders.
Firstly, at the moment I have gravel in the bottom of my tank. Which they told me would be fine, but now looking through out information on the internet it has stated that they can eat this and get it stuck in there throats causing lots of problems. What should I put at the bootom of the tank?
Also, I have read they need plants, can you please tell me what sort is best for them. They are around 9months old, one is 2.5inchs, one is just under a inch, and the other is around an inch and a half.
Any help and advice is greatly appreciated, thank you.

[AnythingWithAShell]

You can use anything that is bigger than their heads for substrate, like big pebbles, slate chips (look in garden centres) or you can just leave the bottom mostly bare, and use clumps of pebbles for anchoring plants, and decor wood and things like that. I like bare bottomed tanks, as they're easier to keep clean

As for plants, you can use any aquatic plants from a fish shop, but you may find they get demolished really fast! You can also feed them watercress from the supermarket (big bunches, not the little punnets). You can try and grow on aquatic plants like duckweed as well, they love that. You can usually get good deals on eBay for aquatic plants, but be aware most sellers count 1 plant as 1 stalk, not 1 plant as 1 bunch like you get in shops

[karen3turtles]

thank you very much. also the pet shop gave us very little information regarding the care of the turtles. We are currently using a tank that is 2ft long, filled 8inches deep with water. We have a 15w light for the basking area, and a filter. Water changed fortnightly, stays clean mostly as i feed the turtles in a seperate tuperware container. I understand the light set up is not correct, can someone please advise me on what it needs to be please as the pet shop have no idea thank you.

[AnythingWithAShell]

You need a basking light, which can be an ordinary household reflector spotbulb mounted in a clamp lamp, and a UVB source (is that what your 15W light is?). The UVB should be 10%, and both lights should be concentrated on the basking area.

Wattage of basking bulb depends on the distance from the basking area, I generally use 40 or 60w. I aim for a basking temp around 35C max.

Is it an external filter you use? If not, you should think about investing in one. They're really essential for turtles, as they make so much mess and water quality is really important. You want an external filter rated for at least 2x the volume of water you are using, but higher rated won't do any harm

And you'll need to upgrade your tank as soon as poss too. With 3 turtles 2.5", 1" and 1.5" you're already running out of space for them I'm afraid. Did the shop tell you/did you find out the sizes YBS grow to?

[karen3turtles]

The light i am using is a 15w screw in fridge light, as supplied by the pet store. do i need to replace this with a uvb light? We have a internal filter at the moment. We was told they would grow upto 5inches, we have since read they grow upto 13inches. What size tank do you suggest at present? Am going to start building a pond too!!!

[AnythingWithAShell]

Yep, you need to change that light. I'd recommend getting a compact UVB bulb (10.0) and mounting that in a clamp lamp, the same as the basking light.

Females can grow up to around 12", but sometimes a little bigger. Males can get up to 8" I think but sometimes a little smaller. You could post a pic, as you may actually have a cooter, and they generally get a few inches bigger than sliders! Many people are sold cooters marked as YBS in shops.

If you have 3 females, you're either going to have to build an outdoor pond deep enough to overwinter them, have 1 huge tank, or split them between tanks for the winter. Or if you have space inside, build another pond indoors for the winter.

Have a look at Graham's sticky at the top of the main shelled page about calculating tank volumes and filtration. It tells you the maths to work out what you need as a minimum. Instead of me repeating it!

[karen3turtles]

I attempted to work out tank volume, and came up with mine being 24.4 litres and the turltes would need 40 litres for the big one. which would mean a tank twice the size, which seems very big for something that is 2inches big. Not sure if worked it out right. Pics uploading to computer as we speak.

[AnythingWithAShell]

What's the dimensions of your tank in centimetres?

And the 40 litres is per inch, so for the 2.5" one, that makes 100 litres.....

Did you measure the length properly though? You measure the carapace, front to back, ignoring the curve of it.

[karen3turtles]

Tank dimensions is 61cm long by 20.5cm wide and 20cm deep. The shell of the large turtle is 5cm. I now have added some pics in my photo album on here if you would like to look.

[AnythingWithAShell]

Yup, your 24.4 litres was right then. I was assuming your 2ft tank would be at least 1ft wide and 1ft or even 15 inches tall. That really is far too small for those 3 turtles I'm afraid. Since you only have the water 8 inches deep too, that makes the volume of water they have even less.

Without a measuring tape to hand, a 5cm SCL is roughly 2" then, so your biggest turtle needs at a minimum 80 litres of water. Then about 20 litres of water for your 1" turtle, then about 30 litres of water for the 1.5" turtle. Making a minimum water volume of 130 litres. So I would recommend a 200 litre tank as a minimum for the size they are now, so you have space to create a basking area. You should get bigger though, or you'll just have to upgrade again really soon.

Going to have a nosy at your pics now