I have heard so much conflicting advice on this one :-(

I'm not sure how much they actually swallow (I know it's some because a changed the gravel from blue to green a while back and a few days later I found some blue bits appearing....) and how much they just mumble the stuff. I take your point though.

We were at the Sealife Centre last week and they use something which is much nearer in size to driveway gravel (lump size about 15/20mm) which I thought looked more attractive, would still allow them to root around it for bits of food which they missed - they seem to enjoy doing this - and looked really good too. At that size even they wouldn't be able to eat it either.

My biggest panic with them yet was last year when I was on holiday and the people who feed them rang up to say that the basking light bulb had blown and lots of bits of glass were in the water! Normally the bulb just fails, but just because I'm miles away it blows up. All during the 3 hour drive home I was worrying that one of them would decide to move on from the nice rounded bits of gravel to one of the bits of bulb! Fortunately they hadn't

Seconded, remove the gravel ASAP - especially if they have a habit of consuming it. A bare bottom tank is fine too, and you get used to it looking less attractive - it eases cleaning too!!

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OK, but I assume that a bottom cover which is big enough for them to not be able to eat it wouldn't be a problem? I do agree that cleaning with nothing would be easier though!

The reason I ask is that they do seem to "enjoy'"(and frankly who knows what they really enjoy) rooting around in the gravel.

I think large stones look good but if your worried about water quality then keep the tank bottom bare.

I have also used river sand (expensive) with no problems but some turts have different habits. For example they will investigate any changes thoroughly so if keeping with no gravel for a while then changing to it might not be a good idea. Might also stress them a bit if you change things around too drastically.

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I care for:

1.0.0 Red Eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans)- 10/11 yrs old

0.0.2 Leopard-Spotted Catfish (Synodontis eupterus) -5/6 yrs old

0.0.1 Red Tailed Shark (Epalzeorhynchus bicolor) - 7 yrs old

2.1.0 Moggies - various ages

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be measured
by the way in which its animals are treated."
- Mahatma Ghandi

Water quality isn't a problem with the gravel I use now, a combination of regular cleaning out and the filter take care of the muck. The tank is very much a focal point of the living room, so in addition to giving them stuff in which to nose about it would look more decorative.

I quite like the idea of river sand, possibly with some large diameter gravel mixed in to both aid decorative effect and to cushion the stones - can you suggest a supplier?

btw, this is the sort of thing which is confusing. Another forum (I've been googling for sand) has a care sheet which says:

Substrate: Substrate is not necessary for these animals, although they will enjoy sifting through it. Unless you have the time to clean it very often as well as the water and filter then going without is best. Gravel or sand is fine at any size.

I'm not arguing with the advice I've been given above, and I'm going to lose the small gravel this weekend, but I remember that when we were first working out what we need we found lots of places which said that sand is best, or gravel is best, or nothing is best, or.... For the novice keeper it's a confusing range of opinions :-(

Exo Terra - Products: Riverbed Sand

Livefood UK Ltd.

Just be careful as a lot of keepers dont approve of sand with hard-shelled turts! But I have never had a problem. Your filter needs to be able to cope too.

__________________
I care for:

1.0.0 Red Eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans)- 10/11 yrs old

0.0.2 Leopard-Spotted Catfish (Synodontis eupterus) -5/6 yrs old

0.0.1 Red Tailed Shark (Epalzeorhynchus bicolor) - 7 yrs old

2.1.0 Moggies - various ages

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be measured
by the way in which its animals are treated."
- Mahatma Ghandi

I'd only use sand if I had to, eg for a softie which actually requires sand, but it can knacker your filter bearings if you're not careful, and turts can still become impacted from swallowing it.
I'd never use gravel that was small enough to swallow, either a bare tank bottom, or my preference is a single layer of 45mm slate chippings or smooth river rock. The gaps in between are big enough that not too much debris gets trapped, and any that does is soon freed by the turts rooting around.

That sounds really attractive