This size is more common, making it more reasonably priced, and your turtle gets more space in the process - it’s a win-win! Rather than stepping down to the more common 90 gallon size and potentially sacrificing your pet’s quality of life for convenience, I recommend stepping up to 120-125 gallons instead. If you want to stick to the 100 gallon minimum, then I have some bad news for you: 100 gallons is actually a not very common aquarium size, so because it’s rare, it’s relatively more expensive. Tank stands can be pricey, so you may wish to build one yourself. Tank stands are strong enough to support the weight of all of that water, plus they’re attractive and bring the enclosure up to eye level. While there are aquariums large enough to meet the minimum housing requirement for a pond slider, these aquariums can be prohibitively expensive, difficult to access, and will require modification to provide an appropriate basking area.įor human convenience, you may also wish to purchase a tank stand to go with your red eared slider tank. Glass is very attractive, and convenient since it provides a waterproof enclosure that is ready to be used immediately. Some people use glass aquariums to house their turtle indoors. Therefore, a red-eared slider enclosure must be able to accommodate both of these needs, providing a large amount of water and a relatively small amount of land area. And to be specific to pond sliders, they spend most of their lives in water, with regular but brief excursions out of the water to dry off and bask. Red-eared sliders and other pond sliders are semiaquatic, or they spend time both on land and in water. Make sure the floor can support the setup’s weight - the ground floor or basement of your home typically works best. Take this into consideration when planning where to set up the turtle’s enclosure. NOTE - Water is HEAVY! Even a bare minimum, 100 gallon/379 liter glass aquarium with nothing else in it weighs ~831 lbs (377 kg). Just because you see someone online keeping their pet red-eared slider in a smaller enclosure and asserting that the animal is “just fine” does not mean that what they’re doing is anywhere close to best practice. However, keep in mind that red-eared sliders are among the most abused and underhoused reptiles in the hobby! One of the many reasons for this is the fact that they are chronically kept in enclosures that are far too small for them. The above “minimum” may seem enormous to you, and possibly even unreasonable compared to examples you’ve already seen. Since most red-eared sliders top out between 8-11”, ReptiFiles recommends 100 US gallons (379 liters) as the minimum acceptable red-eared slider tank size. So what size of enclosure should you get to start out? To save you money in the long run, it’s best to buy an adult-sized enclosure right off the bat, even if your new pet red eared slider is just 4” long. Remember: bigger is ALWAYS better! And with a reptile as active as a red-eared slider, you can be sure that the extra space will be appreciated. Land area is a separate requirement, as red-eared sliders spend most of their time in the water. For clarification, that’s the minimum amount of water that is needed for housing a red-eared slider properly. The depth of the water should also be at least the length of the turtle’s shell, preferably deeper if you can provide it. For example, a 4” turtle would need 40 gallons/150 liters of water to swim in, and a 12” turtle would need 120 gallons/450 liters. However, we can look at established minimum enclosure size standards, and then commit to provide larger if at all possible.Īmong turtle keepers, the generally accepted minimum for housing a turtle is to offer 10 gallons/38 liters of water per inch of shell length. And unfortunately, there is no one perfect formulate for determining the “perfect” enclosure size for captive reptiles. These territories are so large that to perfectly replicate one in captivity is quite unrealistic for most reptile keepers. Instead they have free access to entire ponds and other bodies of water, traversing relatively large distances in their daily hunt for food. In the wild, red-eared slider enclosures don’t exist. So, housing a turtle in a tiny tank in an effort to keep it small forever will inevitably fail, and in the process you will be providing woefully inadequate care for your pet. I’m not sure how that myth started, but turtle size is not - and has never been - limited by the size of its enclosure. Let’s get one thing straight here: There’s a common misconception that red-eared slider tank size limits how large the turtle grows.
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