A friend of mine sneaked a turtle into her house from an asian super market called Kam-Man. She kept it in those little travel tanks with only enough water to barely keep it floating, she fed it beta-bites (beta fish/chinese fighting fish food) and only cleaned that little tank once a week. When I first met this little turtle, you couldn't actually see the little thing because the water was completely yellow.
Now out of moral obligation to save this little creature, I asked her if I could take care of it. She hardly was attached to it, accentuated by her neglegence. Now I've read as much as possible about the little thing
(which by the way, is a Red Eared Slider in case you're wondering.)
and know what to feed it, am building a terrarium, an keep the water 1.5 times the length of the turtles shell like it says I should, but he has trouble swimming and actually stands on the bottom to reach up and take a breath. He also ignores the pet store food I give him. Is there any kind of treat which I can use to indulge his appetite because I'm very worried.
He's calmed down since I first got him and stopped swimming frantically in the corner when I show up, but I've had him for around five days now and he hasn't eaten since I got him. It has me terribly worried and I really want to take care of him. I'm worried that my friend feeding him the wrong food and keeping him in such shallow water has messed up his instincts or something.
He won't even eat the beta food so I'm terribly scared. I'm also unsure about how deep to make the water in the terrarium. He's just under two inches long along the shell, probably three inches stretched out but he always has to put such effort forward to breath. I do have a rock in there so it makes things easier, and I put the tank in half sun so he can have some UV light without the tank overheating, but he doesn't seem to react to anything. Please help.
