Hello! I'm new to this website. My husband and I just bought a house in Los Angeles, and the house came with a pond with three red eared sliders. (It also came with two desert tortoises but that's another story!) We've never had turtles before. When we got here the pond was filthy, opaque black water and the previous owner who had only been there a year and barely lived there left no instructions - the turtles and pond were from a previous owner. We bought turtle pellets and have been feeding them according to head size every few days and the turtles would bask on the edge but never stray from the pond. Last week we had the pond cleaned, a new pump with UV installed, and our old pump moved to the smaller reservoir that had been totally still before. The water is clear and it looks much better. However, since we had it cleaned, we keep finding one of the turtles at the bottom of the nearby swimming pool. Just today we got him out with a net, put him back in the pond and 30 minutes later he was back in the pool. We're not even sure how he's getting there (my husband is currently sitting outside waiting for it to happen again) since it seems like he would have to take a few small drops, and almost definitely would not be able to get back out of the pool let alone back up and into the pond. Wondering why the turtle keeps doing this. Does he miss the cover of dirty water? We just bought a piece of water lettuce today to test out in the pond. We do have a new basking platform so we could lower the water level so they can't get out of the pond but could still bask, but I feel bad taking away their ability to bask all along the edge of the pond. Also, are we supposed to put them somewhere else in the winter? We're in LA. We know absolutely nothing about keeping turtles except what we've read on the web this week.
Also, a few owners ago was the family that landscaped the yard, built the pool and pond and you can tell they love turtles because there is a turtle design in the pool.
There's a photo below but here is a link to more photos of the pond the way it is now and also the turtle in the pool. Any feedback would be much appreciated!
http://imgur.com/a/QGpNg
Thank you!
-Rebsy