Brackish water – amount of salt use / PH
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Hello group, I have totally four questions today. (1) Ada wrote, ” .. I keep mine in fresh water all the time with weekly baths in brackish marine water. Make sure the pH of the water is on the alkaline side ” I have my DB (hatchling) and a river cooter (2 years old) in the same tank and I use fresh water. If i want to bath my DB in weekly brackish water, what would be the mixture of salt and fresh water, or what the PH should be? (2) My DB hatchling is about 3-4 months old. It is the size of a matchbox toy car. It is seperated by a divider right now since my cooter is 2 years old (almost 3 lbs). I am afraid that the big cooter will attack the little DB .. I tried to mix them after feeding since I think the agressiveness will be lesser after feeding. The big cooter is sniffing the feet of the DB and they got seperated immediately to avoiding biting. Is it a good idea to mix them? The small DB seems awefully lonely. (3) Is “Hard Water” harmful for turtle? It seems that my cooter lost the necessary shininess of its shell. Hard water is what our water company provided. (4) The DB would not bask and stay in the water all day. It is healtier and eating both smelt fish slice and turtle sticks, plus it eat its share of calcium block. However, I know that it is important for it to get UV light. I have the UV on at least 8 hours a day but it would not bask and dry up. Is it harmful for the long run? If so, how do i remedy that? Thanks. Stephen Kam
1) As long as your DB hatchling is Captive Bred (and I’m assuming it is), there is no reason to give it weekly brackish baths. DB’s prefer a pH a little on the high side (mid 7’s to low 8’s), but they will adjust to whatever your water supply pH is, so I wouldn’t worry about it. 2) I would keep your DB hatchling separated from your older Cooter until his shell hits the 4 inch mark (3 inches min.) just to be on the safe side. 3) Turtles are pretty hardy little guys. Your Cooter may not exactly “love” the hard water and it very well may have helped take off the luster on his shell, but it’s not really doing him any harm and, in my opinion, it’s not worth messing with. Like you said, your water supply is what it is, and you would have to be adding stuff to your tank water for the rest of time (at every freakin water change!!!!!!) to adjust the water to where you want it to be. WAY too big a pain in the butt if you ask me and it’s not going to make that big of a difference anyway! 4) Yes, it is VERY important for you DB to get completely out of the water and completely dry out (shell, limbs, feet, and all). If not, he/she will eventually develop some sort of skin/fungus issues. These are easily curable, but still, you want to avoid them if possible. My guess is that something is lacking with you basking site setup???? It may be that the basking site temperature isn’t warm enough and isn’t “inviting” her to climb on up there??? It needs to be somewhere in the mid 90’s. Also, is your basking bulb providing both the UVA and the UVB rays? The UVB rays are the ones that are the most important, but if your DB doesn’t “feel” any heat up there, she won’t climb out to bask. Also, you can leave your basking light on for a good 12 to 14 hours a day.
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