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I'm worried I'm feeding my 18 month old turtle too much. I feed him as much as he can finish in 5 to 10 minutes every day. I can tell when he's hungry because he'll dig around the bottom of his tank looking for anything to eat. Once I put the pellets in the water he'll swim after them even if I'm standing next to the tank. He is about 4" long and lives in a 55 gallon, 78 F tank. I've attached a picture of him from the side so you can see how tall his shell is. Does he look healthy? What is shell pyramiding and is it caused by overfeeding?

I'm sure others with more knowledge will chime in. First of all, "he" is likely a "she". Those relatively small front claws at 4" point to it.

As I understand it, pyramiding can be caused by too much protein or not enough uvb light. Your turtle doesn't look to have pyramiding to me, but unless she's a slow eater, the amount she can eat in 5-10 minutes is more than the recommended amount.

At 4", the recommendation is the amount of pellets that would fit in here head every two days, plus veggies.

That beng said, your turtles shell looks nicer than my 3 yr old female. They are about the same size, but I've not seen a good shed for some time.

I agree with ljapa. Not bad but time to cut back. I'd probably do 1/4 or 1/3 head size of pellets everyday. Less is almost always better, just don't give in to the begging.

I always thought Leonardo was a he because the shell is concave up... any definite way to tell? He/she has been breaking the shells of the aquatic snails to eat them as well...

Looks female from the pic, but refer to this page: http://www.redearslider.com/determining_sex.html