Turtles

Took a couple of pics of my turtles today

Piggyback!!! Scoot likes to ride on Spook


Splosh loves grapes

Aww beautiful photos xxx

fantastic photo's
Sallyx

They are stunning! How easy are they to keep as pets as my niece is interested.

the set ups expensive and they take up alot of room but as long as you keep their water clean they're quite easy to keep.

Wow, fab pictures.

touie said:

the set ups expensive and they take up alot of room but as long as you keep their water clean they're quite easy to keep.

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How easy is it to keep the water clean as I read that they can harbour salmonella in dirty water and I'm worried that my niece would be open to getting that.

they're gorgeous - what species are they?

luvabun said:

How easy is it to keep the water clean as I read that they can harbour salmonella in dirty water and I'm worried that my niece would be open to getting that.

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All reptiles carry salmonella as long as you don't put them in your mouth it's not a problem. I have 2 large filters at about £100 each running on the tank to keep the water clean. They are not an animal a child would be able to look after alone, although you see tiny ones in pet shops they grow quite large. The big one in the pic is 10" and weighs 2.5kg and is only 5 years old so still growing! I have a 100G tank which is not big enough. Over the summer they need to go in a pond (well the big one does anyway!) I empty most of the tank water every 2-4 weeks.

The big one in the top photo is a Cooter turtle and the smaller one a Yellow Belly Slider. The turtle in the bottom pic is a False Map turtle.

Thanks for that... the other thing I couldn't work out was how you could have water deep enough for a filter yet shallow enough to have them have rocks etc. to climb onto :?

Here's a pic of my tank. I have external filters at both ends and an above tank basking area to make mre swimming room. This is the min size tank for a 10" turtle, you can see how big it is next to a 28" telly on the right hand side!

You can get smaller species. Musk turtles are smaller and can be kept in smaller aquariums but as far as I know they are more a watching turtle and not as interactive as the larger basking ones. I haven't kept musks so couldn't say for sure!