I have an Asian flapshell turtle who is about ten inches across the carapace. Much bigger than the one in this video. He will eat anything alive and would happily nosh on any of the fish in that aquarium. He absolutely refuses to bask. In the wild, his species stays underwater in muddy bodies where they can't be seen, occasionally poking their little snorkel noses above the water for a breath of air. They don't have to come up often though. They have extremely long necks, but it is important that most of the aquarium is shallow enough so that they can do that while resting on the bottom. He loves to dig, and it's important to have a lot of very fine river sand in their tank so that they can dig down in. The only thing I've been able to keep in the tank along with him has been a few crayfish, which spend their time under a log in the tank. He would gladly eat crayfish if he could get at one, and he frequently digs under the log to try to get at them, but they dig too, and faster than he does. He did get to feast on crawdads for about a month though, when the crayfish had babies. There wasn't room for everyone under the log, plus some of them would sometimes get suicidal and park themselves right in front of his nose. One even committed suicide by landing on a turtle pellet which he was about to lunge at. He sucked in both the pellet and the crayfish, and neither were ever seen again. Scratch one crayfish. He really trimmed down the population, and now we have seven crayfish hiding under the log, and hopefully eventually making more free turtle snacks. They certainly improve his quality of life, even if he doesn't improve theirs. I further improve his quality of life by putting his food in the circular wash created by the tank's spray bar. The turtle pellets are washed down, and since they're floating pellets, they prop right back up as soon as they get out of the down wash. He really seems to like the feel of the hunt, and trying to grab his pellets out of that recirculating water. He succeeds most of the time. He's usually much less interested in the ones which are floating stationary on the edges of the aquarium. I can't get him to touch frozen blood worms even if they're thawed out in advance. If I toss a gut loaded cricket in, he's really happy with that situation though. A big turtle like him does make a mell of a hess though, so it's extremely important to have a strong filter for the tank. I'm using a Fluval FX 6, and I'm sure anything less would not do the job. I have to keep the filter intake hidden behind the log though, because for some reason only known to turtles, he things the foam around the intake is food, and if he can get to it, he will happily take bites out of it and eat it. When it's hidden behind the log, the crayfish will pick bits of food and stuff out of it, and eat it, making it so that I don't have to feed the crayfish. It must be very nutritious for the, because they are healthy enough to berry up and produce a lot of young. All of the surviving females are berried up, and we will soon have more baby crayfish. I did have guppies in with him at one point, but he killed and ate all of them within a matter of days. They are basically a bite sized snack for him. I wish he wouldn't do that because I'd like to put some snails, hillstream loaches, or otocinclus in the tank to help clean up the algae, but it ain't happening.
I found a full grown turtle once on the road. I took him home and fed him up with some feeder fish for a week then returned him to the river. He seemed sad to go though, didn't want to get in the water or swim away.
Dope content Darius! Jersey guy here too!, Keep it up, newer to the hobby and learning a lot from you guys so thank you so much and amazing setups! The music and everything is great 👍🏽😎
I’ve never heard of a male red ear getting up to 18 inches but I could be wrong. All the people I’ve be talked to and research I’ve done all says females are the larger turtles and red ear females on avg get up to 10-14 inches give or take on circumstances
This is awesome! We have two Yellow-Bellied turtles, and have had them for a few years now. We love them both and they have such personalities. Anyway, great video. Thanks for sharing.
Looks good. My son has an Eastern Painted and a False Map turtle that we keep outside in a pond over summer and in my aquariums over winter. I’ve always had a soft spot for turtles but I miss being able to keep plants. 😂
