Habitat - Outdoor :: Hibernation Q - turtles keep waking up and sleeping

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Post Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 11:00 am   Hibernation Q - turtles keep waking up and sleeping

Hello all, little bit of set up and turtle info first then I'll have my question in the bottom.

I have 1 map turtle and 1 yellow belly turtle in a huge 125 or 160 gallon tank and the water is about 16-18 inches deep. The Map turtle is a full grown adult male (I think, it's texas map and it's 4 inches long) and the Yellow Belly is a young teen, close to 2 inches long.

The habitat is very nice, live plants, family(s) of guppies in the warm summer months, 2 caves, tons of rock bridges (made by piling flat rocks) to go through and sleep under and plenty of places to hide from predators (or my hand, I guess) and a very nice basking spot made of cork board wedged between the aquarium width, also UV lights and an area of sandy/diggable gravel where they can dig and bury themselves (rest of the aquarium has head-size rock gravel, I achieved this by pouring digging gravel in a pan and submerged it at the bottom of the aquarium).

My turtles and the aquarium is located in my garage and I live in Canada, Ontario, Mississauga.

I'm confident that the setup and diet I provided them is the best anyone can ever could in an aquarium.

Until it got cold and they stopped eating, I fed my turtles a healthy diet of live fish (I breed guppies for feeding purposes), vector cereal (since it's nutritious I thought it's a good idea, fed this to them quite a bit and never had a problem), anchovies, live plants/green veggies and when I feel lazy, I sometimes fed them turtle pellets.

Once they stopped eating, it was starting to get cold so I figured it's time for hibernation and I just waited for them to fall asleep.


----------- MY QUESTION -----------

It's been about 5-7 days since I started to notice they are sleeping a LOT more than usual. Now I'm at the point where I rarely see them with their eyes open.

But here's the weird thing, they aren't exactly sleeping permanently. Every time I go check up on them (3-5 hour intervals usually, depending on my day) they're always sleeping in a DIFFERENT spot. This gives me the sign that they wake up multiple times in a day. And sometimes I catch them with their eyes open and slightly moving their position.

Why is this? Is the weather simply not cold enough and that's why they're moving about multiple times a day? Here where I live, Canada Ontario Mississauga - it already got as cold as 0 degrees Celsius just few days ago.
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Post Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 3:05 pm   

quick question. you're name wouldnt have to be jason now would it?

And whats the temperature of the water? Since they're cold blooded, their metabolism is dependent. you should get a water heater if you dont already have it.
And isn't a good idea to get captive turtles to hibernate, just raise the water temperature to 24-25 degrees Celsius and you'll be fine
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:30 am   

Turtles usually completely shut down until the water temps hits start to hit mid to low 30s.

My turtles were all still awake at water temp of 38 outside.

I have seen pictures of turtles basking while it was actually snowing lol
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:02 am   

hey... you must be... AMIT! Pretty easy give away with your name, lol. What a small world/internet.

My turtles are kept in a huge aquarium in my garage. There's no way I can bring them in. I've been reading a lot and I think it's safe to put them in hibernation. My water is deep enough and they have been fed properly and they even have digging grounds for burrowing. I'm just not sure why they haven't completely shut down yet, they keep going in and out of sleep.

As for the Painteds4Life, the temperature has already hit low 30s here. It was 0 Celsius few days ago (that's 32 F) and in few weeks it will be below 30s.

Is it safe to keep my turtles in hibernation in 0 C to -15 C range? (That's about 32 F to 5 F) Because it will get that cold in Canada, however I will never let my water freeze.
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 7:46 pm   

Yep thats safe i know someone that hibernates his turtles in his garage too and has never had any problems. He says the turtles move around every once and awhile too.

He used to leave them outside in the pond or in deep leaf pile that they would leave the pond and head into to hibernate but he got one or more deaths sometimes but He has had the most succses doing it in the garage. He has never had a death yet.
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Post Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 12:07 am   

The reason they're in different places is because they still need to come up for air. They'll simply float to the top(while asleep)and gently float back down. Sometimes they'll move around the bottom asleep.
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Post Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 9:09 am   

You've got submerged plants? During hibernation, turtles will absorb oxygen in the water. If the water isn't oxygenated well, well, they can't breathe. Add an air pump during winter, that should do it. Never wake your turtle up by raising the water temperature rapidly. Slowly raise the temperature daily. In the wild, turtles burrow in mud during hibernation for warmth. Maybe yours are hibernating but are way too cold. 0 degrees is pretty darn cold for a turtle mate.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 6:00 am   

What's the different between standby mode and hibernate mode? We are usually put our pc on standby mode or hibernate mode when we are not using it for long time. the pc became idle and will standby or hibernate automatically due to energy saving. so what's the different between standby mode and hibernate mode ?
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