I just got a hatchling RES from a friend who addopted 10 of them. His name is Sparticus. I want to know how much to feed Sparticus and what is good to feed him. Sparticus eats Repti-min baby turtles sticks and a little fish food here and there cause I have him with some fish. How many sticks a day should he eat. Should I feed him him meals worms and stuff or waxworms or earthworms. Romain lettuce? Sparticus has a great setup. A turtle dock he loves to bask on infront of the heat lamp. Plenty of plants in the water he love to climb and sit on. He is just the best little dude. So cute. Please let me know how much and what to feed him. Thx.
Well, your friend just got way over his head in turtles res get really big and require quite big setups. As for feeding, there are many different ways people use but i find the easiest to feed them as much can fit in their head not including their necks, once a day. Meal worms and waxworms and earthworms are fine just use them as treats, the reptimin is good as a staple and the romain you can feed as much as you want because it wont hurt him, it consists mostley of water. You could also try dandelion leaves and crickets, i use dandelion leaves because they carry more nutrition in them. If you over feed your baby slider will start to get a pyramided shell, if this happens just cut back on his food intake. What size setup is he in? After about a year old or 2.5 inches i would reccomend feeding him every other day. Good luck
most of your info is great, mike - but i have a suggestion. i don't like using reptomin, mazuri, or any commercial turtle pellets as a staple; they are *way* too high in protein. the staples for my aquatics are crickets, earthworms, feeder fish, grapes, berries, dandelion greens, brine shrimp, and bloodworms. a varied diet is always best and you can give a turtle up to 3 or 4 of the commercial turtle sticks per week, but not much more than that. too much animal protein like these products have can cause growth problems like the pyramidding you mentioned. also, mealworms are pretty high in fat and low in nutrients and should only be given as a snack (maybe one worm every other week or so). otherwise, your info is great! the amount-of-food-that-will-fit-in-the-turtle's-head, once-per-day (under 2 year old) OR once-every-other-day (over 2 years old) rule is exactly what i recommend to people and dandelion greens are highly nutritious. glad to have another turtle-lover around! p.s. nuggular - you need to get a fluorescent tube-type uv bulb and place it 8"-12" above the completely dry basking area. lack of uv light and/or a dry basking area is a major cause of diseases like shell rot and metabolic bone disorder. also, if your res turns out to be female, you will need at least a 100 gallon tank by the time she is adult. if it is male, you will need at least a 75 gallon. the rena filstar xp3 and fluval 404 filters work great in large tanks like these. otherwise, it sounds like you have a great setup there! we'd love to see pics of spartacus (great name, by the way!)!
Sparticus is in a 20 gallon right now. He has plenty of room. His tank is right in front of some big windows and the sun hits it alot so a uv light might not be needed. I know he will get bigger, I was thinkin like a 140 gallon bow tank would suit him/her nicely. As for my friend, ya he has no idea what he got himself into. He figures when they get to big and he still has 8 of them, he will just sell them to a pet store or something stupid like that. Oh well. He can deal with it. Bye the way, what is pyramiding and what does it look like. WHat can be done to stop it. Thanks for all the info so far guys.
the 20 gallon sounds good for now, but i would start saving up for the large tank. by the way, in case you didn't know, the bow-front tanks are outrageously expensive. a 100 gallon bow-front would be something like $200 while a regular rectangular 100 gallon would be something like $150. i would move the tank out of the sunlight right now. you have no idea how much the glass magnifies the heat of the sun. it can make the water VERY hot VERY quickly - even with a little stream of sun. it can actually crack the glass, too. PLUS putting the tank in the sun is *not* going to get the turtle uv rays. the glass in the tank filters out so much of the uv that the turtle would have to sit in there for 3 days to get the amount of uv he would get from a fluorescent tube-type uv bulb in 1 hour. pyramidding is growth problem where the scutes (hard scales of the carapace [top of shell]) grow too quickly and begin to look like little pyramids all over the turtle's back. it can get pretty bad, too. just stick to the diet i gave you, make sure he has some cuttlebone in there, and get a fluorescent tube-type uv bulb and he should be fine. turtles and tortoises get pyramidding when they are only fed commercial turtle foods (which have way too much protein) and/or don't have enough sun/vitamins. keep asking questions - that's what we're here for!
whoops i forgot to explain that! a cuttlebone is this white, oval-shaped thing that petstores sell for birds. just break a peice off about 3 times the size of your turtle's head and throw it in the tank. he will nibble at it and get some good calcium from it. one day you'll realize it's all gone and throw in another chunk. it floats for the first couple days and then will sink andmost turtles love to chomp on it occasionally.
I will go get that cuttlebone today. Is one baby turtle stick a day ok for the little guy? He likes them so much. Lol. He even eats some of the fish food. Hes a hungry little man. I gave him a small cricket this morning instead of a repti-min stick. Mabye half a stick a day or something? He liked the cricket. Should i give him live bloodworms. I have some for my fire-belly newts. I also have frozen bloodworms. What if i went to the bait shop and got some small red-worms? They are very similar to earth-worms.
i would not give him 1 turtle stick per day. one turtle stick is half of a meal (half the size of his head) and loaded with protein. they *do* love them, but it MUST be only a treat (3 or 4 sticks per week). you will come to find that he will absolutely love crickets, fish, fruits and veggies, brine shrimp, worms, etc once you start giving them to him. my guys won't refuse *any* of the good items i offer them.
yeah i fead him a cricket already and some mealworms. Some grapes too and some brine shrimp. He doesnt like the romain lettuce though.
Usually its the tortoises that eat the lettuce but in my opinion I think turtles really like fish. Is the shrimp alive?
feeding live brine shrimp would be a pain in the butt - they're SO tiny! i buy those little chunks of frozen brine shrimp or bloodworms. and it's not usually the tortoises that eat the lettuce, although they also eat it. most aquatic turtles will eat at least some greens. keep trying to get him to eat all the things i mentioned. he may never take the romaine lettuce, but don't give up on him. leave a peice of it floating in the water and i'll bet that within a few hours it will disappear. also, don't feed him too many mealworms. herps should only be fed an occasional mealworm (one every month or so for aquatic turtles). they are very high in fat and very low in vitamins and minerals.
No there not live shrimp. I got the cuttlebone. Hope he likes it. Ill keep tryin the lettuce and dont worry I took your advice the first time about mealworms as a treat. He gets 1 cricket some mornings and a piece of grape in the afternoon. Other mornings he get a turtle stick and some other stuff throughout the day. I have 2 bottom feeders in my tank and they eat sinking waffers. Sparticus roams the bottom and finds them and eat pieces of them. So somedays I dont give him as much food if I see him eating that. He also eats some of the fish food. Is that ok. It pretty much has the same ingreadients as the turtle sticks. I have seen some pyramiding in some of my friends turtes. Is it a harmfull or fatel problem. What can be done to stop it, not that he'll listen to me. He says I worry to much and they'll be fine. At least Sparticus is getting the right treatment.
pyramidding can be deadly, but usually the death is not actually do to the pyramidding. the pyramidding is usually a sign of deeper nutritional problems (which the animals actually end up dying from). to stop pyramidding, tell him he needs to stick to the diet i gave you (as well as the 'amount-of-food-that-will-fit-into-its-head, once-each-day' rule. he also will have to use a completely dry basking area with a fluorescent tube-type uv bulb directly above it. these are the only things that will stop pyramidding and other closely-related diet problems. if he doesn't believe you, feel free to send him here.
its not that he doesnt believe me so much as his ego. And he has had 2 turtles for like 15 years now and they never had a light until about 6 months ago when i brought one over. He doesnt think taking care of baby turtles is any different and he wont listen to me so lets just hope they live and pray.
yep i've known a lot of people that way. just keep nudging him and tell him he can feel free to drop by reptilerooms.
Ya I will. He actually told me he was worried about one little dude pyramiding. I said just feed them less. He wont bother with the diet u told me. Too much work for him. But he is feeding them less now so lets hope that the progress keeps coming.
sounds good - keep up the good work with your turtle and hopefully he'll see what a good job you do and want to do the same. sometimes the only thing we can do is to be a good example.
i know you mean well but windows filter out UV rays. Otherwise humans would pretty much parish all from skin cancer. Your new pal WILL need a UVB source. When you buy the bulbs make SURE they have a high out put of UVB not UVA. Uva is basically for a suntan. UVB is what is needed for your herp. Many of the suposed reptile bulbs Say they have UVB but the amounts are SO small they can barely be measured. You can use a flourescent bulb like a reptisun 5.0 thos are ok. The new Mercury Vapor Bulbs from T-rex Are AWESOME
