how cute. i used to have a turtle, but i set it free... she didnt like living in a flat

I want a turtle and I want to name him Fluffy.

what strange timing - I was in a pet shop over the weekend with my 7 y/o daughter, and I was thinking that a turtle might make a good pet. Are they difficult to keep? (i.e. what do you feed them, how often do you need to change their water?)

kaufman: the turtle is extremely easy to care for. We feed him pellets and dried meal worms, available from the pet store in a convenient combo container. We tried giving him some red pellets (I forget now what was in them), but that caused his water to get yucky-looking much quicker. Every now and again the twins will hunt for worms or insects to give him something fresh; and even more infrequently we'll purchase a couple of feeder fish from the pet store.

I change his water about once every two weeks. This last time I managed to go three weeks, since the water wasn't horrible looking (or smelling). The filter cartridges get changed at the same time. It takes me about an hour to clean his tank (20 gallons), because I try to disinfect the inside and then rinse it out thoroughly. (We had a bad experience with our last turtle and household chemicals.)

We used to keep Dinky in a spare bedroom upstairs, but after some consideration we moved him down to our living room. He seems to enjoy watching us in our daily routines, and especially likes to watch us when we sit on the couch watching a movie. Our four cats enjoy watching the turtle almost as much as we do!

We used to let him walk around the floor while I cleaned his tank, but that ended with him covered him cat hair. I'm not yet sure what we'll do during the winter months; most likely we'll place him in our tub.

It swims to get away.... it sits under teh heat lamp pining for the sun. A prisoner in a shell is dinky.

;) He's quite photogenic!

I like pic number 2 best. Cool.