****Austinsturtlepage.com’ has all info on care and feeding and PICTURES for all land and aquatic turtles.

***Aquatic Turtles are a life long commitment***

Remember 10 gallons for every inch of turtle.

***You need a heater…set at 82 / 85 degrees. If water is cold they will stop eating!
Sliders, westerns, cooters , midland, painted, map, yellow bellied all are basically the same and require the same basic care.
They NEED calcium and protein they get it from the fish meat and the fish bones. Drop 20 or 30 or so feeder guppies or small goldfish or minnows they maybe a bit fast for babies at first just drop in the tank and watch them disappear in a few days! The more they eat the healthier the turtle. ** When I got these two girls 37 yrs ago all we had to feed them back them were brown worms, tadpoles I caught and goldfish. And my girls are still going strong and just turned 37 yrs old this month.

**** If these are hatchlings a 1” and a tad over they may need to have their live food half dead by leaving the fish out of water for a few minutes (10minutes) and put in the tank. That way the baby can get the meat he needs and the fish can’t out run the baby turtle.
Plus some leafy green and vitamin A fruits cut up a few times a week. Swollen cloudy eyes comes from lack of Vitamin A. Which we all need for good eyes.

Plus I also feed dried cubed blood worms or tubiflex worms or pellets at least 5 times a week for my five..
They can have garden worms which I collect after a good rain and dump them in the pond, also meal worms, snails, crickets, flies, crayfish small frogs, slugs, tadpoles, ghost shrimp , dragon flies and anything that moves, but 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 4 to 5 times a week.
They love grapes and strawberries and squash , apples cut up..

These turtles in captivity do not hibernate their eating may slow down some but they will not hibernate. They cannot hear or see well so they feel you coming by the vibrations each foot step take. And in the winter their appetites slow down some.

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

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

Gravel larger than they can swallow, allot larger.
Their water needs to be clean otherwise they get sick easily from dirty water cause they **** allot. You need a GREAT filter system depending on the tank in a 60 gallon my girls were in one, I used two double sided marine or penguin filters…It really helped keep it cleaner!

They will bite very hard. Under 4″ they carry a disease called ‘salmonella’. So you should wash after every handling ANY size turtle or reptile anyway.
***And my pictures don’t lie. All ages and all sizes get along as long as their is allot for swim room and plenty to eat! They can become cannibalistic if you have 2 or more turtles and a small environment. They will kill off the smallest and then fight for the tank for themselves.

Size for basic aquatic turtle is approx Body length: 5-8″ is average for males, up to 12 inches max for females, but average is about 9 to 10“ in captivity. Life span: 15-25+ year’s plus. 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.
Real mating happens in May through June and hatchlings within 90 days. Eggs are laid in soil. If laid in water they will die. Mating dance happens all year long with my 5 !
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 and us humans.

***Some sicknesses they get easily like shell its actual holes rotting through the shell.
Respiratory sickness, lopsided swimming, coughing, vomiting, blowing bubbles from their nose. Respiratory infection. Treatment is 10 days of injections of Baytril (enrofloxacin) liquid into the front legs. To do this, you must consult a vet to get the antibiotic and the proper dosage. Do not guess on the dose.
Increase water to 83/85 degrees..
Swollen eyes due to lack of vitamin A fruits and veggies.
Fungus white cotton patches on their skin.
Metabolic bone disease means an inadequate calcium and/or a vitamin D3 deficiency. The earliest symptoms are the softening of the plastron, underside of the shell.
Septicemia is the fancy medical word for blood poisoning. What it means is that something bad is in your turtle’s body and it have created toxins in the blood. These toxic are deadly and the turtle need

What applies to red eared sliders, also applies to painted turtles on that site. Also, you will need bare minimum a 40 gallon tank when those turtles are full grown.