Summer Pictures

It’s actually winter here but I came across some pictures taken last summer when the turtles spent most of their time outside in a kiddy pool.

Best palls... who in reality can't stand each other.

 

Charlie and Charlotte in their new kiddy pool. The silver thing is a platform that they can bask on.

Charlotte and a piece of grape.

I eventually replaced the metal platform with this plastic one and some rocks to keep it from moving.

Happy New Year!

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

On another note, I want to let you guys know that my blog has reached 1000 views. I know this may not seem like a big deal for bloggers who get that many views in one day but that doesn’t make me any less proud. Thanks go out to all those who visited, commented, and liked my blog. I hope you guys keep an eye on Turtle Affairs as there will be plenty of new and interesting posts this year.

Creativity saves the day

For a while now Charlotte has been trying to convince me to buy her a new dock – apparently the old dock does not match her feng-shui aquarium. How does she persuade me? By starting to eat it. She had a Zoo Med Floating Turtle Dock which seemed sturdy enough to me, but apparently it’s made of some sort of coated polystyrene that wasn’t strong enough to withstand a turtle’s rage. By the time I took it out of her tank, the dock bore only a slight resemblance to the one I originally bough from the store. The ramp was completely gone and she couldn’t climb on the dock anymore because of it.

I ignored her weird behaviour for a about a week but it got on my nerves because the aquarium soon became filled with tiny floating pieces of dock. I had to scoop them out every few days and,on top of that, my filter got clogged and stopped working. Fortunately it didn’t break, and after cleaning it everything was fine. I decided I had enough and went on the Internet looking for other types of turtle docks, preferable plastic ones that couldn’t be eaten. I found that there only a few turtle docks/platforms commercially available, and only one big and sturdy enough that I could use. It’s the Kordon Turtle Ramp that is made of hard plastic and comes in different sizes. I was ready to buy it when I realized I would be paying almost $40 for a piece of plastic. I decided to take on the challenge of building Charlotte a dock myself which would give me the satisfaction of having built it and also save me a few dollars. I ended up spending $0 because all the materials I used for the project I already had in the house. I used a rectangular lid from a storage container, some thick wire, and a piece of a non-slippery rubber mat. I modified the lid a little to make a slopped side that would act like a ramp, I stapled the rubber mat to the platform and the ramp, attached the wire to the sides and the back of the platform, and hung the platform from the sides of the tank using the wires.This whole project took me about 2 minutes.

I introduced the new platform in Charlotte’s tank 3 days ago and so far she hasn’t basked on it. I’ve seen her get up and walk around on it and soon return in the water. I will give her a few more days before increasing the basking temperature a little to encourage her to come out. During these three days she’s been bitting it almost constantly but so far the dock is still intact.

Update Dec 1: She’s finally using the new dock to bask. After about a week of bitting it, bumping into it, and basically doing her best to destroy it, she concluded that the dock was sturdy enough and gave it a try.

I could only snap one quick picture before she jumped in the water.

And here’s a picture of just the new dock. You can see the large container lid with the rubber mat attached to it, and the wires that hang it from the sides of the tank.

Wriggly Reds

Charlie and Charlotte have recently celebrated their birthdays, he’s 1 year old and she’s 2 years old. To this extent, I’ve decided to go all out and buy them some “presents”. And what would be a better present for a turtle, than FOOD? I purchased one pound of live worms, red wriggler worms to be exact. I shouldn’t even have to mention that they loved them. Charlie is a bit clumsy and often drops them at the bottom of the tank and then can’t find them among the rocks and plants, but Charlotte is the funny one because she eats them like spaghetti. I feed them about 2-3 worms every other day, and on the day when they don’t get worms I feed them very few turtle pellets and a leaf of lettuce (for Charlie, because Charlotte still refuses to eat veggies). At this rate, the worms are probably going to last for…ever.

I also use the worms for composting, and now all the vegetable bits that used to be thrown in the garbage go in the worm bin. You wouldn’t believe how much a pound of worms eats. So it’s a win-win situation for me and the turtles. Not so much for the worms that get eaten.

Bloody situation

It’s been quite a while since my last post. I don’t have many things to report since then except that I’ve learnt my lesson with regards to the turtles sharing one tank together.

This summer, the turtles have spent most of the sunny days outside in a child pool. I think they enjoyed it and the natural UV light was good for them. Due to this, Charlotte shed almost all of her scutes and her shell looks completely different then last year when I got her. It’s so much smoother and the colour is sharper too. She put on some weight though, Charlie as well. Too bad the hot sunny days are starting to get scarce and fall is almost here.

A couple of weeks ago, seeing how well they got along while they were in the pool, I decided to have another shot at the idea of them sharing the same tank. Just like last time I attempted this, everything was fine until the third day when I come home from work and find Charlie on the dock in a pool of blood. My heart stopped and I panicked, not knowing what to do. I got myself together, carefully picked him up while at the same time scolding Charlotte and calling her names that I’m not allowed to mention here. His eyes were bloody, swollen, and closed shut. I tried cleaning him up a little bit and I dry-docked him near a heat source for the night. The next morning, after cleaning away some more dried blood from his face, I noticed that the bleeding had stopped but his eyes still looked bad. It took a couple more days for him to start looking like the usual Charlie again, after which I put him back in his tank.

I’m not trying to put all the blame on Charlotte because, although she’s the one hurting Charlie every time, Charlie’s not a saint either and, from what I’ve seen, he provokes her by waving his nails in front of her face and stalking her around the tank. After all this I made a promise never to try to do this again. It’s a little bit inconvenient having two huge tanks in my room but I knew that that this could be the case when I decided to get Charlotte.

Aggression

A few weeks ago I decided to give cohabitation another chance. I kept a very close eye on Charlie and Charlotte for the first few hours, then the first few days, after which I became confident that they are okay with each other’s presence. There were no signs of aggression – they were eating, basking, and swimming together peacefully.

This was true until a couple of nights ago when I came home from work to discover that Charlotte was chasing Charlie around the tank like a mad-turtle and biting him whenever she got the chance. I cannot say that I was surprised by the turn of events because, as any RES owner could tell you, these types of turtles are known to be aggressive to other tank mates if kept in a relatively small, closed environment. It seemed to me that male red ear sliders are most often the ones who harass the females, but in my case it seems to be the opposite.

Charlie is now in a temporary (rather small) container until I can find the time to set up his tank again. I think Charlotte is the happiest of the two since she got her home all to herself again.

Charlie is the Man!

In the last few weeks, Charlie’s tail has grown quite a lot, confirming my original suspicion (or rather feeling) that he is a boy. He looks a little bit funny now that the tail is as big as his paws and has become the first thing you see when you look at him. No significant growth is evident in his front nails yet but I’m expecting them to start growing soon. I’m guessing that the big tail is the first sign of manhood.

Charlotte was a bad turtle a few days ago. While on a walk around my room, she went underneath my office chair and started scratching her shell against the chair. It is a usual recurrence except that this time the scratching went on for about 15 minutes. I finally stopped her and saw that there were a lot of broken scutes under my chair and that her carapace was bleeding in two small places. Since she’s in the process of shedding, she scratches her shell quite a lot, even in her tank, but she’s never done it this roughly before. I immediately put her in a potassium permanganate solution to disinfect the wound and dry-docked her for a few hours under a heat lamp. I didn’t want to risk an infection by putting her directly back in her tank. The good news is that she’s fine now and both wounds are healed. Hopefully this will be a lesson for her.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Recent read: The Host by Stephenie Meyer

This book is Stephenie Meyer’s first fiction book meant for adults. Most people know her as the author of the Twilight series which, even though it was meant for teens, received a fair amount of interest from adults as well.

The Host clearly describes what it means to be human and how love makes us who we are, each one of us unique. Even though it sometimes feels like such a fragile thing, love is strong and persistent, and will remain true and unchanged regardless of distance, suffering, and even alien occupation. Yes, I said alien occupation!

These aliens that call themselves souls, travel from planet to planet and implant themselves into the local bodies or hosts. Through their intergalactic journeys the come upon Earth, a place unlike any other planet they’ve visited. They are struck by the amount of fear, violence, and disease that they find here and so decide to settle and transform this world into a better one.

The story is dominated by the harsh reality of what we, humans, are doing to our home, the Earth, and ourselves. It’s about realizing that we are a violent race and, whether that is in our genes or we developed that trait over time, it could potentially destroy us and the planet we live in. Another important aspect in this book is survival and how hard it is to stay sane when you know that your life is in danger at all moments, that you might be discovered and, with that, the whole human race will disappear. But hope and love are the ultimate human feelings that can potentially overcome fear, despair, loneliness, if only we allow them to.

Even though it was on the thick side, I liked this book a lot. It got me thinking about my values and how I interact with people. I think it could also make an awesome movie.

The Twins of TriBeCa

Recent read: The Twins of TriBeCa by Rachel Pine.

I want to mention that I wasn’t too excited about this book before I started reading it. I didn’t expect it to be a WOW book mostly because I haven’t heard/read anything about it or about its author. This is explained by the fact that it’s the author’s first and only book so far.

Now, after having read it, I can honestly say that The Twins of TriBeCa is one of the most edgy and hilarious books I’ve read. The main character, Karen Jacobs, thinks that she’s been offered the opportunity of a life time when she lands a job at Glorious Pictures, a film company. She quits her boring job at CNN to embark on this new journey of her life. She craves for the excitement and endless possibilities that come with her job at Glorious. Well, all I can say is that she obviously didn’t know what she was getting herself into. Karen is a hardworking, intelligent woman who is looking to advance in her career while working for the Waxmans, the twin brothers who run the company, but she is constantly hitting brick walls. She soon discovers the two unofficial divisions within Glorious: the Work Horses and the Precious Children. The Work Horses are the people who work and break their backs everyday for their bosses, the Precious Children, who in return take this work and claim it as their own. It took Karen a few months to discover that she was definitely a Work Horse, but not necessarily by choice. It took her about a year to realize that Work Horses remained just that, Work Horses; they were not recognized for their talents and efforts and therefore were not able to advance in the company. I could say that it was something close to exploitation. I don’t want to say too much about the plot, as not to ruin the book for those who didn’t read it.

The book is like a sneak peak into show business. It’s not only a very funny and well written story, but it has at it’s roots the reality behind the film-making industry. It’s quite interesting to know what plans and schemes these companies come up with to manipulate the critics and make us see their movies.

If you’re interested in reading the book, want to know more about it, it’s author, and read an excerpt, you can do all this on the Rachel Pine official website: http://www.rachelpine.com .

Currently reading: The Host by Stephenie Meyer.    -huge book, will take me a while to read it

Vanished

The title says it all.

Last night, while having a little chat with Charlotte, I had a feeling that something is was missing from her tank. True, the rocks and decorations had all been moved to one corner, but there was something else that wasn’t in its place. After a minute or two I realized what it was – the goldfish!!! It was gone… I couldn’t believe that Charlotte ate Fin in just a few hours. That also explains why all the rocks and decorations were out or place.

I had a gut feeling that sooner or later this will happen but I was still hoping that it would be later rather than sooner. I really liked Fin. They have been getting along for the past two years or so and now, all of a sudden, Charlotte decided that she had enough of his fishy tail wagging in her tank.