November 5, 2007

A Turtle Nest

A while back, Ellie had to be removed from the aquarium because the back of her neck was cut open. It took a really long time to heal, but eventually I decided to put her back into the tank. Unfortunately, she started swimming around really quickly again and Shelly would still try to bite her neck. I'm not entirely convinced that Shelly is the reason for the wound though, because it's clear her shell is rubbing against that part of her neck when she swims around.

I did a little poking around recently, and learned something I didn't know about female red-eared sliders. Apparently, even if not fertilized, they need to lay their eggs by digging into the ground. If they can't find a suitable place, they will try to hold the eggs in, which can lead to health problems. This is a regular process, so they need a place where they can go and lay their eggs. So I needed to find some way to create a nesting area in the aquarium, and it needs to be deep enough for Ellie to feel comfortable digging. A 50/50 mixture of mulch and sand was what I found suggested.

The hard part was finding a way to stick this into the aquarium such that it wouldn't just turn into mud. I ended up buying a small 10 gallon aquarium and filling that mostly up with the mulch/sand mixture. By itself, this was way too light and floated to the top of the primary aquarium. So I had to stick four bricks into the bottom. I cut a small piece of acrylic to act as a ramp out. With the right amount of mulch and sand, I was able to get it to float at a level where the turtle dock would allow Ellie to climb in.

I haven't seen Ellie take any interest in the nest yet. Masako, my neighbor down the street who also does our landscaping and maintenance, told me that Ellie is actually too small still to be laying eggs anyway.

Posted by josuah at November 5, 2007 12:29 AM UTC+00:00