Painted turtles can be often found in lakes, ponds,
marshes and rivers in North America, southern Canada and northern Mexico. Their
diet is very much varied in the wild. Painted turtle care has some simple
requirements. You
just need to know what kind of environment and diet is most suitable for
your turtle.
Painted turtles prefer calm, shallow water and lots of
aquatic greens for both food and shelter. They may go out into the sunlight and
bask during the day.
When it’s time to cool off, they may want to take a swim in
the water.
Painted turtle care involves providing the right
shelter. Since the turtle is basically in captivity, you’ll need to provide as
much space as possible for both swimming and basking. The basics you need to remember
are just to make sure your turtle gets enough wet areas as well as
dry ones.
First of all, the enclosure of the housing should be
aquatic. The width of your tank should have three times the length of your
turtle’s shell; the length of your tank should be six
times the turtle’s shell. This is the minimum requirement and you can go larger
than that.
For the basking area, you may use UV lighting to ensure
that the turtle can dry itself when out of the water. The preferred temperature
during the daytime is around 84 to
88 degrees Fahrenheit. You can achieve these temperatures in your turtle’s tank with an
incandescent light.
The water’s depth should be shallow, specifically as
deep as the shell’s width. The water itself should be
around 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. To maintain temperatures, you may use a submersible
aquarium heater.
Now let’s get more into feeding your turtle. Feeding
your turtle properly is a huge part of painted turtle care. In the wild, painted
turtles can eat a variety of things, such as larvae, crickets, duckweed, worms,
crayfish, tadpoles, clams and small fish. When captive, they can eat lettuce,
fish, earthworms and cantaloupe. You should make sure though that
your turtle eats food that has nutritional value. Iceberg lettuce for instance has no
nutritional value.
For optimum painted turtle care, try to imitate the
turtle’s nutritional content of food in the wild. Many believe that feeding a
painted turtle a variety of suitable foods is the way to go. You may also
introduce commercial pet foods to your turtle’s diet for added bulk and fiber.
Commercial pet foods may also be an alternative diet for your turtle to lower
parasite risk.
Now if you happen to have hatchlings they need extra
painted turtle care. This means providing very shallow water, filters, heaters,
lighting, basking areas and other accessories. A filter can make the water
cleaner, and heaters provide more comfortable temperatures for the hatchlings.
Just like adult turtles, hatchlings will need lighting. For basking areas
you may simply use small rocks as accessories and for tiny hatchlings to climb
up on.
Not all the accessories are absolutely needed for basic
painted turtle care. For instance, a heater isn’t always necessary, as painted
turtles can survive very cold temperatures in the wild during winter. But if you
want optimal painted turtle care, you can try out the options in this
article.
