[/quote][/color]I have to disagree completely. Red eared sliders are most definately NOT social animals (except for the brief moment of mating) RES will fight with each other relentlessy, whether it's over territory or mating. I wouldn't reccomend more than 1, and definetely not more than 2. If they're all males, then you've got a territory war, if one of them is male, you've got mating fights, and all females leads to territory once again.
Sure toys might distract the turtles. But they'll start fighting again, that's more of a very temporary fix, that is, if it even works. Since the male is small and outnumbered he'll be bitten or physically hurt some other way be the males. 4 RES are very very very hard to keep, we're talking custom indoor aquariums or mammoth ponds outside.
All my information is from fellow members, online care sheets, RES care books and some conversations with the MPZ zoologist...
Though these are reputable sources, I do question the testing environment used to form their conclusions. My conclusions are based on twenty years care of the same group of RES.
A point that I forgot to bring up is tank size. Turtles like humans will become irritable in a confined invironment. the current set up I use is a custome made tank close to 500 gallons, as well as multiple basking sites. with enough room for each turtle to have lone time should they want it, I find the majority of time all four prefer to hang around each other. the toys should resemble items that would be in the res natural environment. the more you can make them feal like thy are in the wild, ei natural vegitation, a variety of things to hunt, and different places to hang out and explore the happyer they will be. I do stand by the statement that they are socal animals, to see multiple turtles stacked basking in the wild is prof enough of that. But if space is limited no ones going to get along.
