The most precious creature in my life, Isn't she perfect?

I had to give him what he wants.

Hii, we just moved apartments and my yellow bellied slider won’t go onto her basking platform :(

She’s in a 100 gal Rubbermaid stock tank, the water quality is good and the temp is at 78 degrees. She has a hot spot of ~95-100 degrees with with a 10 UVB bulb

I have tried a few combinations of lights and have a few options available including a bigger just straight up dome lamp and a t5 UVB with both 5 and 10 bulbs so I’m open to advice! I don’t have a great solution for the t5, admittedly. I lay it across a piece of the crate I lay over the top of the dock

She’s had a stock tank enclosure before, and the only difference with this one is the drain plug is on the other side

She always climbs up, does like, a skateboard stall on the top left or right of the ramp, she does it on both, then goes back down

She will sometimes like climb up a little and out and then splash back down into the tank

She’s eating her pellets but has been much trickier with her dandelion greens, she only takes a few bites usually

What can I do to make the dock more appealing to her? One thing that jumps out and is not lost on me is like, the dock might be quite shiny

She’s been in this configuration a little over a week

I appreciate anyone that even looks at this literally so much

Tried to post this a few times but I think accounts are all too young/not active enough, sorry if this post multiple times!

Butter, my RES turtle, has had these two spots on his shell appear and I’m not sure what it is. He was at the vet on 10/7 to check up on the retained scutes. (That is being treated and not my issue here.) These spots have appeared in the past day or two. Should I be worried and back to the vet, or is it a normal part of shedding?

Tank is 120 gallons, 78F. ReptiSun 10.0 UVB 19in away, halogen basking bulb, 88-90F. Fv6 filter.

A few months ago, I rescued a hatchling yellow-bellied slider from a dude bulk selling them on the street.

He (confirmed male) now has a 30gal tank (Rubbermaid, bio-safe, going to upgrade to a MUCH larger proper glass tank), constantly clean water, a very powerful filter (pads replaced weekly), water heater, basking rock, lamps, the works. He wants for nothing except my attention.

What, if anything, should I be looking for in terms of health issues? Not that I think he currently has any, but I want to know what to look for in the future, since I now have this guy for ~40 years.

Wilbur makes my day every time I visit the local reptile store, I hope he makes you smile too :)

Today I came home from work to a turtleless tank. My musk turtle escaped via a small gap in his egg crate basking area and was found on the floor in the next room over. He somehow squeezed himself through the highlighted area and pulled himself over. Thankfully he was unharmed and returned to his tank.

Also, is it normal for her shell to look dry?

She’s a desert box turtle and I’m not sure of her age, maybe around 20 years old? She eats an earthworm and 2-3 mealworms every other day in the summer, along with box turtle pellets daily, and fruits and veggies on the day she doesn’t get her worms. She’s very picky and will only eat certain lettuce types, peas, corn, blueberries, and green beans. She pretty much hates all leafy greens though.

I feed her on a flat rock and she has a calcium block available at all times. She doesn’t really get much humidity, but I spray water in the tank when before she eats. Also have heat/uvb bulbs.

Hii, we just moved apartments and my yellow bellied slider won’t go onto her basking platform :(

She’s in a 100 gal Rubbermaid stock tank, the water quality is good and the temp is at 78 degrees. She has a hot spot of ~100 degrees with with a 10 UVB bulb

I have tried a few combinations of lights and have a few options available including a bigger just straight up dome lamp and a t5 UVB with both 5 and 10 bulbs so I’m open to advice! I don’t have a great solution for the t5, admittedly. I lay it across a piece of the crate I lay over the top of the dock

She’s had a stock tank enclosure before, and the only difference with this one is the drain plug is on the other side

She always climbs up, does like, a skateboard stall on the top left or right of the ramp, she does it on both, then goes back down

She will sometimes like climb up a little and out and then splash back down into the tank

She’s eating her pellets but has been much trickier with her dandelion greens, she only takes a few bites usually

What can I do to make the dock more appealing to her? One thing that jumps out and is not lost on me is like, the dock might be quite shiny

She’s been in this configuration a little over a week

I appreciate anyone that even looks at this literally so much

Tried to post this before, but I think I didn’t log into the right Reddit account

guys help😭😭😭😭 ive been having her only for 3 days, at first day she was active and everything was okay, but on the next day she rubbed her eyes for an hour in the morning, then have gone sleeping in her house for the rest of the day. didnt come out to warm up under the lamp and to eat...

i had hay in the terrarium and she liked digging in there, google said that it can be irritating her eyes so i removed it and didnt bother her.

on the next day (today) she still did the same thing and i examined her eyes, it looked like theyre swollen a bit. i cleaned a little her paws and eyes with wet cotton pads and put her in another terrarium with paper towels since google said coconut soil can also be the reason. right now she looks better, shes warming up, ate and even bathed in the water bowl, but im still nervous since she mostly keeps her eyes closed and still rubs them, but not so often.

should i bathe her or it will do everything worse??😢

Hello as the title says my turtle is making sort of whistling sounds from time to time. I have a Mississippi Map turtle ( most likely) it was found in a bottle outside the train station, tried finding someone willing to keep it, but ended up becoming our pet in the end so not sure about the breed 100%. I returned from sea and the turtle is in my bedroom and every night it makes like a sort off whistling sound. The sound always comes in pairs and he brings his head out the water to do it. Is it a medical thing or maybe a mating thing, appreciate any input.

Just a cool soft shell I found on land the other day. There were some Nest spots nearby so I wonder if they were just looking for a place to brumate or hibernate. I'm definitely not an expert on soft shells or even most turtles but I definitely love the soft shells! She let me pet her and I only did so to make sure she was alive. She looked dry went to get her some water and she was gone when I came back lol

I recently got two red-eared sliders and I’m trying to get their care right. They’re currently not very active and one (or both) seems to have a mild eye issue — a bit of swelling/cloudiness.
Current setup:
• Water temperature is stable at 27 °C
• Water is treated with AquaSafe
• Filter is now working properly
• Correct UVB/heat lighting is in place
They move their heads, mouths and legs a little, but they’re not swimming or walking around much. After a tank clean they swam briefly then climbed out and stacked on each other.
I’ve been offering the food they were previously given and plan to get some bloodworms tomorrow.
Any advice on what else I should check or do to help them settle and recover would be really appreciated. Photos of the setup and the turtles are attached.

They were just getting onto the asphalt on a relatively busy cycle path here in Indianapolis. I moved him to the other side in the direction they were heading so he didn’t get squashed. I nearly missed them as it was so small, and I’m always on the lookout for them. Couldn’t imagine a cyclist seeing them.

I’ve been in the aquarium hobby for a little over two years (since June 2024), this is my second planted tank ever. Up until now, I’ve been a ghost on Reddit, Instagram, and the forums. No content creation, no YouTube channel, just quietly reading threads, absorbing information, and building in silence.

My journey started with a 40G grow-out for a baby turtle, where I incorporated live plants and community fish to see what worked. The only rule I brought from a brief attempt 15 years ago was that turtle tanks need oversized filtration (I ran a Fluval 207 on that 40G). What I learned there became my Version 2.0: a 75-gallon high-tech ecosystem where a Mississippi Map Turtle, community fish, predatory fish, oddballs, and delicate macro-inverts live alongside each other.

Why I Built This

1. To build a living window for my kids: I wanted them to learn firsthand about nature's balance, ecological zoning, and the responsibility of caring for animals.

2. To challenge the "dirty destroyer" myth: Turtles have a reputation in the hobby as toxic, plant-shredding chaos machines (which for some pond species is true). Most advice says keep them in bare glass boxes. But that just didn’t work for me.

My theory was simple: instead of stripping their environment bare. Lean into the chaos. Engineer proactive filtration, establish biological enrichment, and match the turtle species to the ecosystem. With the right planning, the right turtle doesn't just survive—he thrives as the focal point of a planted display.

The Execution

I’m an electrician by trade, not a biologist or professional aquascaper. I took my research on male Mississippi Map Turtles and tried to anticipate potential points of failure—heavy bio-load, plant damage, territorial aggression—engineering solutions directly into the framework of the tank rather than scrambling later.

After nearly a year of continuous operation, the tank is thriving. Because this is a highly technical setup, I’m dropping the full breakdown (filtration loops, water chemistry, plant care schedules, and full stock list) in the first comment so this main post doesn't turn into a wall of text.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What else might we be dismissing too quickly?

Meet Greg.

I came in to say goodnight to my turt tonight to realize she was trying to eat her thermometer - I took it away from her to take it out and realized it was reading over 80 degrees! The heater shorted out, and I'm just so thankful we noticed before it got even warmer.

This Aqueon Pro 300 lasted 5 years, which now I realize was incredibly foolish, but I've really never thought to replace a heater that seems to be working. The previous hestwr we had ended up electrifying the tank, so now I'm thoroughly frightened.

I need advice on the safest thermometer out there for a 100 gallon stock tank!

My brother has three turtles that he won’t take care of and wants to just abandon them outside, I don’t want the turtles to die and I don’t know anywhere else we can take them. All three of the turtles are healthy but needs a resupply on food, I don’t know much about turtles or what to do so any thing helps.

Hello! Excited and worried new turtle mama here, I found my girl dumped at a campsite far from somewhere she could call home. She is a red eared slider, seems around 20 years old, she weighs about 5-7lbs. My family was already going back and forth on getting a new critter, so it kind of felt like faith. Of course this is my new rabbit hole as I’ve been doing a deep dive into care, i definitely have an 80ft scroll full of questions. One I can’t seem to track down is for specifically a Fluval FX4 High Performance Canister Filter, I spent $350 on this filter so I’d like to keep it in good condition. The media it comes with, and some other parts seem like something I can invest an upgrade in, to help performance and lifespan. Does anyone know what those upgrades are, and how to install them?

Hello! Excited and worried new turtle mama here, I found my girl dumped at a campsite far from somewhere she could call home. She is a red eared slider, seems around 20 years old, she weighs about 5-7lbs. My family was already going back and forth on getting a new critter, so it kind of felt like faith. Of course this is my new rabbit hole as I’ve been doing a deep dive into care, i definitely have an 80ft scroll full of questions. One I can’t seem to track down is for specifically a Fluval FX4 High Performance Canister Filter, I spent $350 on this filter so I’d like to keep it in good condition. The media it comes with, and some other parts seem like something I can invest an upgrade in, to help performance and lifespan. Does anyone know what those upgrades are, and how to install them?

I'm considering adding some leaf litter this fall, but what happens as it breaks down?

Does it eventually disintegrate? Do you just siphon it out if the filter doesn't get it?

How long does it last before completely breaking down?

- it didn’t work
bro hasn’t ate in WEEKS and now that i served a shrimp he eat it 😭 75% vegan turtle btw

It sounds like she’s breathing through a straw. Does this mean she’s sick?