av bin reading some information on the net but im confused on does it matter ow deep the water is in my ybs set up . . . sum pictures show the water as deep as the tank with a floating basking area then others are saying that the water should be the same depth as the length of the turtles body. can any1 help??

YBS are excelleent swimmers, even as 1" hatchlings, there's no training pool in the wild. Fill the tank up as much as possible, try to include some resting places just below the waterline though.

ok thanks and how far should the basking light be away from the basking area because im going to have to raise the water level which also means i will have to raise the basking area.

Do you mean the heat source or UVB?...the UVB should say on the box how far to have it, and the distance of the heat source just depends on how far you need it to get the correct temperature.

thanx n ur information has really helped . . .

When we got our red-eareds they'd only ever been in shallow water in their lives. But after we'd had them a couple of weeks or so our research showed that they liked deeper water (and by that time our external filter had arrived and that needed a lot of water depth) so we filled the tank up.

We had some trepidation about putting them back as they'd only ever had water to the top of their shells, but as was said "there's no training pool in the wild" and they powered about underwater like they'd been doing it their whole lives. It's horribly anthropomorphic to say this, but I swear you almost hear a chelonian whoop of "Weeeeeeeeeeeeheeeeeeeeeeee" as they swam around in it

That's great news....glad I could help.