General Care Discussion :: New Rescued Tankmate?

[DeviantMonkey]

I recently rescued a Yellow-bellied Slider from an owner who had her in very substandard conditions (11" SCL in a 20 gal tank with just enough water to cover her shell and no lamps/heat with crappy in tank filter. Also they were completely changing the water every 3 days with tap water and feeding her Reptomin 3x per day. Nightmare!!). She has some pyramiding and redness on her skin, so I have her in a 75 gal rescue tank right now so I can keep her under observation to see if she has any health conditions. I've also slowly been raising the water level to "teach" her how to swim; I put her in about a foot of water the first day and she panicked, pretty sure she almost drowned herself, so I had to drain it back down. Anyway, after I wait the obligatory 90 day quarantine, I was thinking about moving her in to my 300 gal. tank with Raphie, my 14 year old female RES. I'd be grateful for any suggestions on how I should introduce the two and avoid aggression if possible. Thanks all!

[steve]

The thing about aggression is that it can happen at anytime, there's no way to predict how a turtle will react when put into new territory or encounters another turtle. Are they similar in size?

[DeviantMonkey]

Yes, Raphie is 12" and Lucy is just over 11". I was planning on monitoring them closely throughout the process of introduction. Since my tank is so large, I was thinking of finding a way to put a divider with small holes in it to allow water flow in the middle of the tank for a week or so to allow them to see/smell each other before I let them interact. Then after a week, letting them interact for an hour a day and gradually increasing from there. I feel like this method would be better than just tossing them in together and seeing what happens, but my logic may be flawed.

[steve]

It's certainly worth a shot. A 300 gallon divided would be ideal to most keepers.

[DeviantMonkey]

Anyone have any recommended build ideas for a divider for my tank that would allow water to pass through that would also be turtleproof? Raphie likes to tear apart anything possible

[steve]

You can probably make something out of egg crate. I've also thought about siliconing 4 strips of glass, then sliding a divider (egg crate or acrylic w/holes drilled into it). Since it's glass and silicone, it could be removed without damaging the tank. But there are other ideas... i guess it depends on your materials and whatever features you may want.

[DeviantMonkey]

That is a good idea! I just dread the though of having to drain all that water and moving the fish back and forth.. I had been trying to think of some sort of PVC frame, with clamps on top to hold it in place and using acrylic for the actual divider, but couldn't figure out a logical way to make it work.

[steve]

PVC could work, but you might need a pipe extending all the way to each end of the tank to keep it sliding. At least thats what my thinking would be... can't wait to see what you come up with!