Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 7:21 pm
Thank you for your response and your welcome. Common sense should have told me that by placing something in the water it would be safe, but being the overly protective "parent" that I am to Michaelangelo, I just freaked out and thought the worse. Your response put me at ease, and as I look at him basking on his rock, I now know he is going to be ok.
Michaelangelo was a rescue turtle from my twin sister. My sister had purchased him as a hatchling in NYC back in 2000. When she moved to Hawaii last July she packed up and left her apartment leaving Michaelangelo. About two weeks after she was gone, she asked me if I would go over and check in on him. Knowing that she would never return to care for him, I went over to discover him in an apartment with the air conditioner on (the place was 54 degrees when I got there), no water, and no food in the tank. He was the same size as when she got him, and he was black!!!!! I immediately brought him home, placed water in his tank along with some boston lettuce and carrot shavings. Within 48 hours his color started to come back. Some ten months later, he has grown from about 2 inches to an incredible 7.5 inches. His colors have really come out and he is as happy as can be. In January, I transferred him from a tiny two gallon tank that I had to change every few days to a ten gallon filtered tank with a heat lamp over a rock that I picked up at the ocean some time ago. He has adjusted perfectly, and is now a part of my family.
One question, I do have is determining how old he is. I don't know which squares to count on his underside (full squares or the partials that surround the bottom portion of his body)?
Again, thank you so much for your quick response and your help.