I am trying to find a pet who won’t put the household in an uproar. Dogs and cats are forbidden at this time where I live, I don’t really like birds, and I already have fish at work to feed. I have liked turtles for a long time but have never had one. I am not going to rush right out and get a turtle without proper information; I know they tend to live a long time and might not be a good pet for everyone. I am interested, however, in whether anyone here has or has had turtles or tortoises and how that worked out.
I’ve had many turtles and I’ve got one right now (meet Sherman and Gordon! Gordon got elecrocuted when Sherman rearranged the tank and shattered the heater. Sherman is the one on the left.)
Turtles are the cactus of the animal world. They’re very easy to take care of. Ideally, you’d like a biggish tank (how big is the turtle?) with about half of it water, the other half something the turtle can beach itself on. They can be rough on a filter, so make sure you get a good one. If you have a 50 gallon tank, get a filter for 100 gallons. Having gravel or something at the bottom for the turtle might not be so bad, but it will accumulate some crap. Mud turtles (what kind is your turtle? Gordon was a mud turtle) will appreciate something to dig in much more than a red-ear slider (Sherman is a red-ear slider).
As far as the heater goes, and I did mention that Sherman broke the heater because he likes to rearrange the tank, I’ve got a metal heater. That solves that problem.
Sometimes the water will get a little funky. That means you might have to clean out the tank. Funkiness in my tank almost always comes from some kind of funk held up in that ceramid monkey that’s in the tank. Cleaning that out and replacing some of the water and cleaning out the filter almost always fixes it.
You may want to get a plecostimus fish (one of those sucker fish, if you’re more familiar with it in those terms) to keep algae under control.
What do we feed him? Sherman gets these turtle pellets or ham. Yes, ham. He likes ham. He’s also been a part of the family for nearly 15 or so years ad shows no signs of slowing down. I’ve taken him across the border through Canada to Buffalo and back a couple times.
Did you mean to post a pic? Because if you didn’t, that was just cruel! 
Whoops! For your viewing pleasure: Sherman and Gordon (and monkey).To atone for my evil deed: bonus pics! Nordberg, Spaulding, Boris, and Quincy.
Depends on what kind of a turtle. We currently have a box turtle. For the last three years, we’ve captured a box turtle along the side of the road in late Spring. We let 7-year-old mudgirl keep it as a pet all summer. Then in the Fall, she and her father take the turtle out to a wooded area and turn it loose so it can hibernate. Box turtles are very low-maintenance. A box (duh), some newspaper, a big rock, throw it some left-over raw veggies now and again, and it’s happy.
I almost responded to a Freecycle ad by someone who was giving away a red-ear slider turtle, but didn’t, because we don’t have the appropriate equipment. I thought if no one had claimed it by this weekend, we might go out and get the equipment. Someone already took it, though.
Have you thought about rodents or a tarantula? (we have guinea pigs, gerbils, and a Rose Haired tarantula). They don’t cause an uproar. I, personally, don’t see the tarantula (or the turtle, for that matter) as ‘pets’, because they don’t acknowledge our existence. I like the pigs and gerbs, though.
memememememe! I’ve got no pics, but I’ll try to get some. Meet Gamra and Red (aka that little bastard).
Gamra is my SO’s, technically. He is a snapping turtle, and he has a whip tail, spiky shell, and a beak for a mouth. He looks angry as hell but in reality is the calmer of the two turtles.
Red is my Red-eared slider and boy is he a bastard. We used to have his tank all prettied up with plants and everything, and he ate every single plant. He snipped the last leaf off the last plant right when my SO was watching. My SO arranges all the tanks, so obviously it was a personal insult. Then we put plastic plants in there and he tried to eat those. Lastly we bought this special plant that was quite expensive at a reptile show that the guy said turtles hated. You guessed it, he ate it. Now he only gets pretty rocks for decoration, and his tank is kinda bare.
I feed them both turtle pellets, Repto-Min. I feed them once a day, but honestly if they go without a day or two it’s not a concern, so they are a good pet for when you go on vacation and such. They also eat lettuce. They love fish and my slider will chase them but we don’t put it in much because they invariably shred the fish to bits and make a mess in the filter and everything.
They are cute and simple to take care of. My leopard gecko is another idea, he is slighly higher maintenance but since he now eats worms instead of crickets, hardly. Once you get the initial setup, he’s good to go, just clean out his poops now and then.
One more thing - my slider does sort of acknowledge my existence. He knows when it’s time for feeding, and he’ll swim up frantically and bang on the side of the glass. He’s a crazy mofo. He’ll also eat from your fingers, occasionally. And he turns over rocks in the dead of night, looking either for a female or food. It sounds like: clink. clink. clink.
I’m afraid of all creatures arachnid (I watch those spider shows and I am equal parts “pretty!” and “scary!”), and the other inhabitants of the house are afraid of rodents, although if I keep it in my room, that shouldn’t be a problem. I don’t know much about guinea pigs, though. I’ve only had cats and dogs, so those are really the only kinds of critters I am used to. My sister had newts (Newton and I forget the other one, some N-name) and a hermit crab but it’s always been mammal-critters for me.
I’ve always been fascinated by turtles and lizards, though.
’Mika, your red-ear slider is a bastard, too? Sherman is the biggest ball of cocksucker this side of the Mississippi. I thought it was just him, but I didn’t know if it was species-specific…
Another thing to add about reptiles: you ever see Steve Irwin’s show? What animals bite him more than any others? That’s right, reptiles. Reptiles don’t have that thing in their brains that say “Wow, that thing is bigger than me. Maybe I shouldn’t fuck with it.” No, they say “Come get bit, motherfucker. If you lay still for long enough, I just may eat you.”
Guinea pigs smell, IMO, even if you keep them clean. I think most furry creatures smell a bit. Nice thing about lizards & reptiles, their smell is very faint and since they slough off their skin, it’s not lasting.
Wow, I felt the same way. I guess it is the species. Everybody always says how snappers are mean sons of bitches but having had this snapper for a year now I gather he is more like a bulldog, angry when you piss him off and stubborn, but pretty laid-back otherwise. Red is more like a pirahna.
I love tarantulas myself and would love to have one but it would freak my SO out - he doesn’t like spiders one bit.
Telperien, Any other questions?
Note to self: get very small turtle.
I was watching a show on Animal Planet and a woman on the show had a turtle (I don’t remember what kind–I’m sure they mentioned it, though) she’d had for twenty-five years and she wasn’t a very big turtle. How big do the kinds you guys have get?
Well, we use cedar bedding for our pigs, and change it weekly. That seems to help. In our gerbie cage, we use timothy hay, and don’t have any problems. OTOH, I don’t have a particularly sensitive sense of smell.
Red eared live up to 35 years, though they say more like10-20 in captivity.
Alligator Snapping turtles in captivity, anywhere from 20 to 70 years.
Our box turtle is maybe 4" across. My hubby, who knows his reptiles, said it’s no more than a year or two old.
Oops. You wanted size not age. Hmm…I think that’s in those links, too. hang on.
For some reason animals seem to grow according to the size of the tank. A fish that will grow to 8 inch length will stop at 4 in a small tank. I can’t guarantee that turtles do it but Sherman is about 8 inch shell length.
I thought cedar bedding was bad for rodents? Or am I thinking of pine? I know when I had a hamster and a rat I used that recycled cardboard stuff. Mostly cause it was cheap and I was low on funds, but also because it seemed least likely to cause any kind of respiratory problems.
Guinea pigs can be loud too, something I never knew. “Oi Oi Oi Oi Oi Oi!!!” They’re like owning a parrot.
Doesn’t matter if it’s small. that just means there’s more eatin’ to do.
But maybe I can get away before I’m totally consumed.
I always thought it was cats that were supposed to eat you. Maybe they share with the turtles.