What Should My red ear baby turtle Cage Look Like?

Question

I am getting oner in like 2 days ! just need to know!

Answer 1

No cage..just a tank with tons of water.

The bigger the environment the bigger the healthier the turtle. Walmart has a 55 tank with hodd and light and filter for 153.00. You still need a UVA rep light and a dock for him to bask on and feeder fish and turtle stix.

Did you know that they need to bask under a reptile light UVA 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.

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

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 worm, meal worms, crickets, flies, crayfish and  anything that moves!

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.

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.

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

Answer 2

Get the largest tank possible--at least a 40 gallon and it will last a couple of years until you need a larger one.  Keep it simple so it is easy to clean.  A basking platform, a water filter (powerful), a water heater, a heat lamp and a UVB reptile light.  They need more than UVA--they must have "B" to survive.  Do not use gravel at all.  It makes it too hard to clean the tank and even small turtles can swallow large pieces of gravel and become fatally impacted.  Change the water very very often as the filter cannot remove ammonia waste.  Clean water is key to healthy turtles.  Feed a balanced diet of several kinds of pellets, fresh fish (like minnows or guppies--but only from a pet store, not wild caught which can carry parasites) and when it gets older a variety of veggies.  See here for more complete care:

http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/ca...