The Red Eared Sliders Marsh

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Melissa Kaplan's
The Red-Eared Slider

MY SLIDERS

It was a hot summer day, my girlfriend and I were strolling down the streets of NY, when my girlfriend saw an oriental lady selling tiny aquatic turtles. We immediately fell in love with them, and decided to buy 2. The only English words the lady knew were "five dollars", and we went for it. She probably didn't know also that the thing she was doing was highly illegal, neither did us. But luckily we started our own research and learned in time how to properly grow these cute little fellas.

Tino

Although we couldn't tell which sex was, instinctively we named him Tino. Because he looked larger than Tina (at the time we didn't know males and females characteristics). We might rename him later if "he" starts laying eggs.

He is now a 2 years old red-eared slider (Trachemys Scripta Elegans). His behavior is not compared to any slider I knew. He actually likes humans he doesn't "slide" away from the basking spot when some human shows. He likes to be taken out of the tank and have a little walk around the house. He makes the photographing job easier because stays still when I try to take a picture.

His carapace length has reached 7 1/2 inches

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Tina

Tina and Tino have the same characteristics, so we assume they have the same mother. She is also the same age. She does run away from humans and is very shy when handled.

She is the most lady-like behaved in the tank and probably the cutest. She is developing some beautiful colors on the carapace.

Neither Tino or Tina are aggressive turtles.

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Zoe

Probably named after the "Rolie Polie Olie" (something like that) Kids show.

Some body gave to me after realizing the time consuming job that is taking care of a turtle.

We don't know the age, but we guess is older than the other two. She's got large front claws, thick and long tail, so we might also have to rename her using a male name.

She is being treated for a severe shell infection. She is the most afraid of humans. When we introduced her to the tank she got overwhelmed probably for the large amount of water (she was kept with little water) and it looked for a minute as she was drowning. We took her out of the tank and tried again later. The other turtles would approach to her like saying "Hey! Calm down!" until she got used to the tank, and amazingly started imitating whatever the other turtles did. As a first reaction with the fish she kind of wanted to chase them, but later she got used to them.

One thing we learned; never approach the finger to Zoe's mouth because she might and she will bite without a second thought.

UPDATE: I COULDN'T KEEP UP WITH THE CLEANING AFTER THE 3 TURTLES. ZOE HAS BEEN ADOPTED BY ANOTHER TURTLE LOVER.

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Photos


Tino	A nice place to sleep	Stop Photographing me!	Basking

Feeding Time	Basking	Tina Swimming	Fish afraid during tank cleaning

UPDATED PICS COMING SOON

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Fish Buddies

We started with 1 Angelfish, 1 Flame Dwarf Gourami, 1 Common Plecostomus, 2 Neon Tetra, and 1 Guppy.

Afterwards the Guppy and one Neon died, and since Neon Tetra is a community fish that is best kept in groups I decided to get more of their kind, but they wouldn't resist to live with turtles, so we tried with other kind of small fish, The Serpae Tetra (also from The Amazon). When I first introduced them to the tank they panicked and the turtles started getting ready for dinner, so I took them out and tried again the following day. They adapted very well and now are good buddies with Neon (the survivor).

UPDATE: ALL THE FISH PASSED AWAY EXCEPT "FLECO", THE PLECOSTOMUS. THEY COULDN'T SUPPORT THE CONSTANT PH IMBALANCES CREATED BY THE TURTLES. TURTLES GOT BIGGER, SO BIGGER WAS THE MESS. I HAD TO CHANGE THE WATER ALMOST CONSTANTLY. AMAZINGLY MY TURTLES DIDN'T CHASE THE FISH. IF YOU ARE TRYING TO PUT FISH WITH YOUR TURTLES THE ONLY FISH STRONG ENOUGH TO SURVIVE WITH TURTLES IS THE PLECOSTOMUS DON'T TRY WITH ANY OTHER.

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