When can hatchlings be introduced to juveniles

[Scott McDaniel]

Scott McDaniel

September 13, 2007 at 5:40 pm #25212

I have one 3.5″-4″ juvenile female and a small (a bit less then 4″), slightly older male on the way. My legal limit without a permit is three so I would like to go up to that and hopefully later get to the point that I can have a place where I can build an outdoor enclosure for more and even breeding if the law allows. I have learned an incredible amount from my terrapin that I have now and I am hoping to study their interactions with each other to further that research, hopefully leading up to a documentary in the near future. Right now it is the time of the year where some beautiful hatchlings are for sale by a few of the members here and would love to add the final one to my collection. I have recently setup a very large aquarium to house my group and have read that hatchlings should be kept in 10-20 gallon aquariums until 3 or so inches. I know my first terrapin was an excellent swimmer and probably would have loved a larger tank (I had a 20 gal. long) even as a hatchling. Do they need a smaller tank for a sense of security as they usually do a lot of hiding in the wild as hatchlings or is that just for convenience? I know a lot of turtles can be cannibalistic towards their young, would I run this risk with a hatchling being placed in a tank with juveniles or other small terps? I know they want to eat everything that moves but I’ve seen a lot of huge turtles in the wild basking with much smaller ones. Is the best bet just to wait until the hatchling is larger before introducing it to the new tank or is it better for the turtles to be around each other from the beginning. I have plenty of room for all of them to bask, plenty of lighting, and nice clean water. I rather condense the number of aquariums to make my wife happy and keep the noise and heat in my office/turtle room to a minimum. Any clarity on this subject would be greatly appreciated!!! -Scott

[Stephen Chew]

Stephen Chew

September 13, 2007 at 7:09 pm #25213

Hi Scott, In my opinion, it’s not so much that hatchlings should be kept in 10- 20 gallon aqauria but that they can. They could also be kept in much larger aquaria as well without any ill effects. I would never place a hatchling with juveniles. The pond turtles tend to gravitate more towards vegetation as they grow but it’s the exact opposite with terrapins. Even clutchmates can be cannibalistic towards each other, especially with large size disparities commonly noticeable by their first 3 months of growth. I have seen smaller clutchmates decapitated before by larger ones so not something I would advise… -Stephen C — In diamondbackterrapins@yahoogroups.com, “Scott McDaniel”

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