Heating pad for red-eared slider hatchling?

Question

My friend has recently acquired a turtle. It's too cold at night in the house for it, and she was wondering would it hurt if she put the heating pad for her dog on low under the gallon ice cream jug it's in right now? She's going to get a tank, basking light, and filter for it but is saving up for one of the big 50+ gallon tanks so she doesn't have to keep upgrading tanks so much.

Answer 1

Oh its not going to last long in that ice cream jar,,

Tell her to check the water every couple hrs but only if the jug is glass.

The heating pad may reslease some fumes from the plastic ice cream tub if it gets to hot and your not suppose to use heating pads by water.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29035692@N0...

The bigger the environment the bigger the healthier the turtle. Remember 10 gallons for every inch of turtle. I have used kiddy pools and plastic pond liners from most nurseries and worked great.

Did you know that they need to bask under a reptile light UVA/UVB for 8 to 10 hrs a day for the vitamin D that they need to grow. So that means getting a turtle dock also.

Leave the heater on 75 to 78 degrees always.

Their water needs to be clean otherwise they get sick easily from dirty water cause they p**p allot.

Total Body length: 5-8" average, up to 12 inches max. Life span: 15-25+ years

Males have the longer front nails and are used in mating. And are considered mature at about 5 yrs old. You can’t start sexing till about  3” across.

You need a good filter system! Gravel larger than they can swallow.

You need to feed them feeder guppies, goldfish or minnows for protein and calcium daily drop 20 or so in the tanks and watch them disappear in a few days!

This way when they swim for their dinner they get exercise also!

They sleep at the bottom of rivers, streams. lakes or ponds or your tank to avoid predators like coyotes,  foxes, owls, hawks, possums, raccoons and even some wide mouth bass.

TOSS in a bird cuttle bone in the water for calcium. it will dissolve real slow and if they eat it that’s fine!!

They can have garden worms, meal worms, crickets, flies, crayfish small frogs, dragon flies and  anything that moves only as a treat.

They need leafy greens Romaine, Butter lettuce. (Iceberg and cabbage are bad for them, any other leafy greens will do) for vitamin A that they need at least 3 to 4 times a week.

You probably already know that they get sick easily, shell rot, respiratory sickness, lopsided swimming, coughing, blowing bubbles from their nose.

**Swollen cloudy eyes means lacking in Vitamin A. Which we all need for good eyes. Google ‘vegetables with Vitamin A.

I wish you luck.

Answer 2

This might help.

Answer 3

As long as she can check the temp it should work. Make sure the turtle can get away from the heat if it wants too. And if she doesn't want to upgrade (like me) she should get a 75g. She needs at least a ten gallon so that it can move around if she can't get the money right away. Ten gallons are really cheap if you go to petsmart or crigslist.

Good Luck!

For Your Other Question: The tanks need to be half land and half water.  Or mostly water and some land. They need a dry spot to bask. They need UVB light and UVA light. You can buy one of these tubs ( or something simular), they make it easy to build a half and half house for turtles. You still need filters and water dechlorinators and stuff, but they need dry land. And they stink really bad, so cleaning often is a must.

http://www.naturecoastexotics.com/turtle...

It's at the bottom of the page.

Answer 4

I would only recommend doing this if your friend has a temp Gage in place, otherwise it may become too hot.