hi im just curious, i have seen many wanted ads for turtles recently and i just want to know how many people keepturtles, and if they are able to be kjept in side? i would like to one day get some murrays or another short necked turtle but i just wondering if they can always live in an aquarium.

Turtles are generally kept in aquariums till their big and conditioned enough
to handle their first winter outdoors, usually in their third year. Generally this is at about 12-15cm carapace length. They can be kept indoors for life but there are considerations to me made. You could house two adults in a 6ft aquarium (BUT), They need a few things to thrive:~
1. room to move! Turtles can do damage to others of the same size if overcrowded
and kill and sometimes feast on smaller turtles. [NEVER] keep largely different size turts together.
2. room to walk and dig! there is simply not enough space in even the biggest home aquarium to provide sufficient land area for turtles. A large enough acrylic aquarium (glass too weak) would be ridiculously expensive.
3. UV ! Turtles need regular uv and sunshine, this and their 'walk' requirements means regular time outdoors. You can use UV lighting, but imo, its a waste of money, the sun shines for free!(and its way better)
The cost of keeping your turtles inside for life may or may not outweigh the benifit of being able to watch them.
Mine are about 3 yrs old now, still inside, but they go out alot. They will be maintained inside for up to another two years, by which time, they will be close to sexual maturity.
Captive bred turtles tend to grow faster and mature early than their wild counterparts. wc maturity app 8 yrs /cb maturity 4-6 yrs.
this is mainly due to overfeeding. A WC turtle may reach 10cm carapace length in around 5yrs / cb usually within 2 yrs!
A sensible feeding regime will see slower more natural growth and better bone/shell development. The bonus is you can enjoy watching them swim about in your room for much longer, before a pond is needed.
By 5 yrs imo the novelty will have worn off, although I love watching mine!
Theres a basic turtle caresheet in the caresheet forum that I wrote that might be of help to you. Cheers Inny

hi
this is aussie site rite i dont c .com.au???well if u dont noe wat im talkin bout just say so
im ex melb i hept a turtle in a tank down there inside i had a heater 4 it but no lamps it was a very healthy animal
i had to give it away when i moved to darwin but im tryin to get one now here there plenty avaible but from places i dont want them from
but my sort of breeder friend who breeds alot of animals has eggs in incubation im goin get one off her
im goin to keep him outside ethier in my tank with my file snake(which is a water snake) or with my frogs in a very small cage that i havnt got yet ... rite now frogs livin with the file snake n fish

I hate to say so, but i really dont thinks frogsand turtles and file snakes go too well together.

p.s. yes its an Australian based site on a U.S server, lol
We welcome folks from anywhere though.!

lol i cant even get my file snake to eat have to force feed it but they all live good together the tank isnt huge but its enough room 4 them all
i didnt think that it was good idea at first ethier but one sort of breeder friend i have say their fine like that and she keeps them like that

In my opinion every seperate species of reptile is best kept seperate from other species. Even if they dont see each other as food they will certainly see eachother as a rival for food and territory, things like this will leave them in a stressed state even if it isn't apparent to you. In the wild different species do co-habit the same areas but they also have the option of being alone when they wish, they simply aren't given this option when kept with different species in an enclosure. For example when a snake is sloughing(shedding skin) they are very vulnerable and their eyesight is extremely poor, simply having turtles swimming around would worry the file snake in my opinion because it is vulnerable at this time. I also imagine the turtles would be far faster at getting their food then the snake which would also stress him, he'd feel like the enclosure is the turtles territory not his, this could be a significant reason for your file snake not feeding. I also think force feeding should be an absolutely final resort when the snake has lost condition, rather than force feed try to find the reasons behind your snake not feeding, try every different thing you can first, like seperating it from the turtles, if that doesn't work maybe raise the temps a little, maybe move the enclosure to a very private part of the house where their is no vibration from footsteps, snakes are very sensitive to vibration. These are just a few of the things i would be thinking of before i endeavour to force food down his throat. If the snake is wild caught it will also make your job a little harder.

Sounds like great advice to me Aussiesnakelover, well put Matt .
See how ya go with doin that aussy,
I think its very important to give reptiles there own space, afterall
they all either predator or prey.

i have only one turtle living ina fish tank. Though the tank is mean't for fish, it is really big so a turtle can fit in it. Once i move out of my apartment, (hopefully soon!) I'm gonna build an outdoor pond and keep two turtles in it. but i have to be careful with the my cat and dog.... they'll eat turtle at will, or join forces and make delicious turtle soup together.

Hi Littlepiglover, Wed love to see some pics, what species is your turtle?