Getting a what? A TURTLE!!!

[Minkness]

Since my state has finally gotten with it and legalized turtles and tortoises, my local store has stocked up on several species od turtles.

I was never a HUGE fan of turtles, but I had been visiting this store for years and kept getting drawn over to a tank with an odd, bland looking species in it. They were always active and alert seeming, and had funny faces.

Well, today, they totally won me over. Sooooo, either tomorrow or Sunday I will be going to pick up my little male scorpion mud turtle!

I have the basic run down of care. UVB and heat bulbs, filter for the water, a basking area, and food. But what can you more seasoned turtle keepers tell me about keeping and loving turtles?

Also, should I use any water treatments to help with stress or potential parasites like when getting fish? If so, what should I look into?

[dannybgoode]

Good luck with the turtles mink. Don't know much about them so can't help with the specifics but would love to see photos of your set up when it's ready.

[Minkness]

It will be a very simple set up for now. Bare basics. A tub with about 6-8 inches of water, a filter, a basking rock, and a duel lamp with heat and uvb bulbs.

If things go well however, he will have a much much nicer set up of either a large fish tank or possibly a kiddie pool or preformed pond. And yes, it will be inside lol. He won't be an outdoor turtle.

[Albert Clark]

Nice choice Mink! I think the single most important piece of husbandry equipment will be your filtration system. I also believe that either spring water or tap water allowed to stand for 24 hrs. prior to use is safer. Consider a under gravel filter.

[Minkness]

Thanks for the heads up Al. I actually have a full water filtration system on the house which filters out chlorine and such. Pretty close to pure water you can get!

As a test I used it on my gold fish (were just feeder fish at first but they have proven exceedingly hardy lol) without any additives, and they never missed a beat lol.

I i am also going to go completely without gravel or any substrate to make it over all easier to clean. Though I may put some large rocks in the bottom as apparently they like to walk along the bottom, which is difficult in a slick tub lol. But they will be large and flat for the most part.

[DarknessToGold]

I bought filters that could handle way more water than I actually had in their habitat because turtles can be messy. Mine liked some rocks at the bottom and, when smaller, some "lilly pads" or floating logs or something that they could climb up on and float around. Granted, I had red-eared sliders and not mud turtles.

[chairman]

I agree on over filtering the water. My turtle setup had filtration equal to about 800% of water volume. I accomplish that using a hang on back "hob" filter and an internal canister filter with a water bar that I keep submerged to create a mild current. I have found that maintaining a decent current under the lighting helps cut down on algae. I only clean one filter at a time to preserve the beneficial bacteria.

I would go with a tube uv lamp, the cfl style doesn't appear to work very well unless they're mounted horizontally, and it sounds like your dome would hold it vertically.

You can put slate tiles on the bottom for traction, they're not that hard to clean up after.

I'd add a half dozen feeder guppies. Your turtle may eat them but they help break up the turtle waste into pieces that the filter can manage.

Turtle folks frequently use terracotta pots for basking spots, they hold beneficial bacteria and are pretty hard to tip over.

If you find yourself needing a water heater then I'd go for a metal one. If you can't find one then a plastic will do. Turtles break the glass ones and having an electrified heating coil in water rarely turns out well.

Depending on what kind of water your turtle needs, a piece of drift wood will turn the water slightly brown and add acidity. I think that mud turtles usually live in fairly tannic water so he might like that.

[MDT]

Having hatched out a clutch of red eared sliders a couple of years ago, I can say stay on top of the filter! Holy poo....7 baby turtles overwhelmed my submersible filter quickly and the stink was "conversation stopping"...I had to upgrade quickly.

[Minkness]

0h my....now I'm scared!