Turtle Times

Box turtles get their diet wrong more than any other commonly kept turtle. We see two patterns in our inbox over and over: keepers feeding only commercial pellets (cheap, convenient, terrible long-term) or feeding only lettuce and fruit (visually colourful, nutritionally hollow). The actual diet…

Map turtles (genus Graptemys) are the connoisseur’s pet turtle. Beautifully patterned, active, intelligent enough to recognise their keeper, and small enough that a single adult fits comfortably in a 200‑litre setup. They’re also fussier than sliders about water quality, and that’s where most beginner setups…

If you want an aquatic turtle but don’t have room for a 400-litre slider setup, the common musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus) is one of the best-kept secrets in the hobby. Tom has kept musks in a 100-litre footprint for the past nine years and considers…

Diet is where most painted turtle health problems start. Linda’s answered hundreds of “why won’t my painted turtle eat” and “is this food OK” emails over the years, and the pattern is always the same: too much pellet, not enough plant matter, and the wrong…

The red-eared slider is the most-kept pet turtle on Earth, and we’ve seen more bad slider tanks than any other species in our inbox. Tom’s kept sliders for twelve years and has done the maths the hard way — outgrowing two undersized tanks before finally…