#56 – Out Of The Tank Series - Turtles

FEAT JENNY WYVERN FROM THE TYE-DYED IGUANA

3 years ago
Transcript
Speaker A:

Hey, Rob.

Speaker B:

How'S it going?

Speaker A:

Oh, hey, man. dude, I just got this new phone. It's got this sweet camera. dude, I just took some pictures of my shrimp. Check this out.

Speaker B:

Oh, dude, is that your junk?

Speaker A:

I'm so sorry. I swear to God, I just typed in my phone shrimp and I sent the wrong picture. Please let me send the correct one. It's from Joe shrimp shack. Please let me send it right now.

Speaker B:

I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that's infected.

Speaker A:

There, there. I just sent the picture. Just pretend the other one didn't happen to make it up to you. I'm going to go to Joe Shrimpshack.com. I'm going to use promo code aquarium Guys at checkout. I'm going to order you some shrimp. Just please don't share this with anyone. Don't tell this never happened.

Speaker B:

Dude, you should seriously consider some manscaping.

Speaker A:

Joe Shrimpcheck.com. We'll forget, if you will, welcome to the Aquarium Guys podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob dolsen. Jimmy style together. Rob spoke together. Okay. Just recently. Hi, guys.

Speaker C:

Welcome.

Speaker A:

The podcast today, Jim. He left me.

Speaker B:

You deserved it.

Speaker A:

He's turning he's turning 75 years old.

Speaker B:

I have to tell you that. He's going to punch you in the throat for that one, I suppose.

Speaker A:

Well, I'm your host, Rob dolson.

Speaker B:

I'm Adam El Nashire.

Speaker A:

And I'm Jenny wiver, the replacement for Jimmy.

Speaker B:

Well, we have a J at least.

Speaker A:

Yes. Right? And when we're sitting there looking for candidates for a temporary replacement for our cohost, we have to go with someone way more attractive. I mean, that's just a given. And thank you for being on here, Jenny.

Speaker C:

That's really hard to beat. jim's attractiveness.

Speaker A:

He does have that mystical, magical NAND voice that everybody still craves. But what you're going to do? So Adam.

Speaker B:

Yes.

Speaker A:

You had the podcast for this week, the idea. And what is it again?

Speaker B:

Aquarium turtles. Turtles in general.

Speaker A:

Wait, aquarium turtles. So before we get into because normally the podcast theme has questions, what we did through the week, everything else. What on earth is the difference between a turtle and aquarium turtle?

Speaker B:

Some you put in an aquarium. Some of them are, like, better pets than other ones.

Speaker A:

So this is going to be the turtle episode, and we're going to learn what aquarium turtles are together. But before we get into it, jenny is our residential expert in discord on amphibians. Jenny works for the Tide iguana, is that correct?

Speaker C:

Correct.

Speaker A:

In St. Louis. So shout out to them. And thank you, Jenny, for joining us. So hopefully we can get these questions answered, such as the term aquarium turtle, which makes my butthole, frankly, clench. So thanks for that, Adam. You're welcome.

Speaker B:

I do it again.

Speaker A:

You do the lord's work. Clearly.

Speaker B:

Now I know what to say whenever I want to get you going. Aquarium turtle.

Speaker A:

Yeah. See? Right there. clench. Just so you know, that is all you going around to go into detail. We have some messages back and forth from people. Let me go to the first one. Give me just a moment here. Okay, the first one. We have a listener, Rex. He's messaged us before and he wanted to let us know that this is not his video, but apparently there is a I don't want to use meme. There is a minimal viral video going around of an Asian arowana swallowing a Red Tail catfish hole.

Speaker B:

How does that feel? They can make it, Rob.

Speaker A:

Right. So it's the other way around. So for those that have not listened to the podcast when we first started the podcast, one of our detrimental stories, because we always talk about our mistakes as well, we're human, and we learned from them. And I wanted to share that with others, is that I decided to pair my black arrow not Asian, by the way black arijuana with a rescued shovel nose cat, which happened to swallow him whole. So thank you, Rex, for coming to my defense and showing me an arijuana that can eat a catfish hole.

Speaker B:

Yeah, well, it also helps if you put the arijuana of a decent size of the catfish.

Speaker A:

Right. So the other messages we got is one on Facebook. And guys, if you got questions, go to aquarium. Guyspodcast.com, in the bottom of the website, you'll find the information to reach us. You can go email, you can give us a phone call, leave us a voicemail, text message, however you want. Even going to our Facebook page and sending us a direct message works just fine. We have people that message us on Facebook. And I was frankly beside myself. I'm like, what do we do with these? Hi. My name is Rich. Love the podcast. Keep them coming. anyways, I wanted to ask about what filtration I should use for my biggest aquarium. It's a 375 gallon acrylic aquarium measuring 8ft long and 30 inches high and wide. It already does have the drain and returns for the tank installed towards the top of the aquarium. However, it leaks slowly around the fastening rings for the pvc pipe in the back of the aquarium. So what I want to do is create a behemoth of a planted aquarium scape, fill it with cardinal, tetras, cory, cats, hatchet, fish, eccent, plus tons of plants. But the current problem is the leakage on the fastener rings. I'm considering closing the ports off, sealing them up, then installing a canister filter like a fluval X Six. That or turn my 125 gallon tank underneath the 375 into a wet dry sump. What would you guys recommend? Keep the great podcast. Just say no. The feeder guppies. Thanks again. So, a little shout out for you there, Adam.

Speaker B:

Yeah, I seen that.

Speaker A:

So, Adam, what do you recommend for a 375 to put in it for a Filtration?

Speaker B:

Well, that FX should be fine. That FX six.

Speaker A:

Well, adam leans the FX, right? Because it's simple and easy, but they don't die.

Speaker B:

You don't understand. I've had hagen pumps that do not die.

Speaker A:

They're the best canister filter. I mean, we can't argue with the FX six results. They're bulletproof, they come with all the frills bells and whistles, but I still as good as that best canister filter is. I always recommend a sump any day, wet, dry, however you want. If you have 125 gallon sump underneath, awesome. I mean, you can put hanging side baskets on to keep other fish in. Imagine the amount of media you can put in. You can do chambered moving beds, the amount of filtration would be insane. You could potentially, and I'm not telling you to do this, but if you're doing a 375 community aquarium where it's nothing but quote unquote, nano fish like Cardinal tetris, you can potentially do thousands of fish in a 375 with a 125 gallon sump underneath. You could over pack that with schooling fish and it'll easily chew through the ammonia with that amount of a sump. Whereas a canister filter, it will certainly filter the water, but it won't even compete with 125 gallon sump. I mean, as cool as the fool FX is, well, yeah, but I suppose.

Speaker B:

The only thing you're going to have to do is you're going to have to put power heads if you wanted hatchet fish, he's going to have to put power heads in the corners because the hatchet fish like a little bit of current.

Speaker A:

Yeah, power heads. Or he's going to have to put.

Speaker B:

At least let me think here.

Speaker A:

Or the return he could have returned flow on the sump and just make it a crazy powerful sump.

Speaker B:

You know what else he needs? He needs some endlers in that tank.

Speaker A:

He said no feeder guppies at him, he might have them on top. We're going to go to our favorite listeners and just like, prank their tank with Eddlers that's not a troll like our version of shitting on their lawn. Jenny, what do you recommend? Who's.

Speaker C:

Right, I think Adam might be on the right side here.

Speaker A:

God damn it. But mine's better.

Speaker C:

Right, that is a pretty powerful sump.

Speaker A:

It's a sump and a half. Like, you could section off the sump as its own little time out zone for different fish. Or here's a cool idea. You can light a section of the sump and have it just be like dwarf hair, grass bed, so choose even more out for you. There's just a limitless amount of options that you can do with that sump. In fact, mine, I have a 125 gallon planted tank. I'm doing the same idea. I have the not Cardinal tetras, rummy nose tetras, because I prefer those more than Cardinal tetra and I put hundreds of them in there and I'm actually converting it over to a sump because I love sump so much from my other tanks. So, food for thought. Jenny and Adam are right. It's a great filter, but have some fun.

Speaker B:

Okay, so can you put that big of a sump in a planted tank?

Speaker A:

Oh, yeah, you can put as big a sump or tiny a sump as you want.

Speaker B:

See, I've just never had really good luck with sumps.

Speaker A:

What is your struggles, Adam? I feel like this is an educating moment for all of us.

Speaker B:

Well, I think I'm going to set one up and I'm going to try a little something. The next one I do, I'm going to have my garage going and then I'll do that.

Speaker A:

So let's just rewind for a minute and talk about sums. I know there's a future podcast coming. We're going to talk about sums. But just a quick overview we're going to throw over on this one to start. If you're looking for the efficient, hobo version of a sump, there's many different things you can do. And we'll go over that in a future podcast. But I have number one, your filtration. So I always use like a mat and filter. And you can look up matt and filters. You can buy them on Amazon. They come in sheets and you can cut them to fit. So that way all the water pumped in have to go through that. So it catches live unborn babies, it catches all the debris, whatever else. So it goes through the first mechanical filtration, then it goes through a valida biological filtration. And generally you go buy yourself media balls. Crazy expensive. Instead, get yourself some pot scrubbies, go to your dollar store, hustle up a few bags of them things and fill it up with pot scrubbies. They're just as good, if not better than bioballs, most bio balls in the market.

Speaker C:

And also not just that, but you can also use lava rock. Lava rock is really good for media.

Speaker A:

In fact, I recommend doing both because why not in your sump? If you can have the best of both worlds, I mean, do it probably.

Speaker B:

Get the lava rock from the dollar store when you're going to get the pot scrubby, just dig it out of their friends.

Speaker C:

I was going to say just go to Home depot and for like literally like a 50 pound bag, it's like $3.

Speaker A:

That would be again, you first do your mechanical, not biological filtration. And then as far as chemical goes, you can put in your bag of carbon, you can put in a uv filter, and then your heater, your pump, everything else. And it just cycles on through and it chews through the filtration so well. It's like having a larger ecosystem for your tank than you ever expected. But great question. Love it. Hopefully we answered it. And now the leaky part. I mean, if you have a bad bulkhead, replace the bulkhead. If it's leaking around the fitting for the pvc, clearly you have to either unscrew it or cut it and put a new piece on there. There's plenty of different videos that many different YouTubers go on on how to seal and fix bulkheads. I'd certainly search a couple. I think even Ohio fish rescue has a couple of recommendations for when they put in tanks. So check those out. But make sure you have a bulkhead cover, especially with a planted tank. Otherwise you're going to have potential for clogging. And that's not cool. Especially when you have red blue wig or something that sheds don't you have.

Speaker B:

To be careful with what you put on the when you're sealing it with the new stuff because doesn't some stuff, like eat through the acrylic? Some of the chemical compounds.

Speaker A:

Eat through the acrylic.

Speaker B:

Yeah, I thought I heard that if you put what the hell was it? When you're sealing an acrylic tank, you have to be really careful because if you put the wrong stuff on it, it'll melt right through the plastic.

Speaker A:

That's why I use the right stuff. But I guess I've never just sat there and bought stuff and hoped it worked for acrylic. I always get the stuff for acrylic. I just never thought of that. That's probably a good note to have listeners.

Speaker B:

I thought superglue is one of those that just eats right through it.

Speaker A:

Could be.

Speaker C:

That sounds pretty familiar to me. I couldn't say whether or not that's true, but that actually sounds like something I've been warned about before. So maybe just make sure you're watching what adhesives you're using with acrylic.

Speaker B:

You don't want to wreck that nice of a tank. Where are you going to put the feeder guppies?

Speaker A:

Yeah, where are you going to put the feeder guppies? I'm glad we trained you, adam. So next question we have is from natalia and says, hey, my husband recently turned me on to you guys. Love the podcast. Hope you answer fan questions. Me and him are having a disagreement on how to start up a shrimp breeding tank. I want to start with go shrimp and see how well we do with those first. And they are so much cheaper and if it doesn't fail, it won't be a huge financial hit. We want to start either with cherry shrimp or blue cherry shrimp. I don't know what blue cherry shrimp is and think that it would be a huge investment to go for first at breeding anyways. Can we get your guys'thoughts on this? Mine is number one. I'm assuming she just refers to cherry shrimp as the neo cardinal shrimp. So you could either do like cherry or blue shrimp, which would be like blue really? Yeah, blue really. There's plenty of different blue shrimp to pick from. But as far as do you start with go shrimp as a test subject? No shrimp. I wouldn't. And I get the idea that you want to try a fish that's less risky. Salt water does this all the time. You throw in a damsel fish to start the cycle. Damsel fish will take a lot of abuse. If the damsel fish is working, that at least gives you enough hope to put other fish in that are more expensive. So I understand the concept of doing this. We all do this in some of our places and our hobbies. But go shrimp and neocardenia shrimp are very different subjects. Go shrimp have a completely different behavior. They're essentially a different shrimp. I use feeder shrimp or garbage shrimp for go shrimp. In fact, when you order from places like wholesale for pet stores, go shrimp are on the feeder list for feeder food. They are, they have very different requirements and really won't show if a neocardenia is safe in the tank or not. Just because they are different. They have completely different tolerance levels. So I messaged back to ghost shrimps are very different to the colored shrimp and have different attributes. Because of this test with ghost shrimp wouldn't give info worth having. I would start with Neocardenias, low cost to start and skip ghosts altogether.

Speaker B:

Well, the other thing is, ghosts don't breed. They only breed in brackish water. Plus they're not like the neocardenias where they're an egg scatter. They just release all the eggs.

Speaker C:

What are they trying to do? Are they trying to set up just a shrimp tank or something?

Speaker A:

They want to breed them a shrimp tank for breeding, but they don't want to start with expensive shrimp. And I get this now to give you a recommendation on this. I would certainly go out and anybody that really does deal in shrimp, especially like an actual shrimp shack.com, they have cull tanks because any good shrimp host any good shrimp breeder, make sure to pull culls from his tank. Some people label this as the skittles coloration of it because they just have a tank full of culls. But any person that's actually into shrimp has these and they're about fifty cents to two dollars apiece depending on the quality of call that you can get. So if you want to reach out and you want to try something less risky, go to your local place, call Joe at Joe Shrimp shack.com and he'll send you. He may not have it listed on his website, but he has calls that he can certainly send you. That is much cheaper than going for the high end shrimp you're looking at.

Speaker B:

But just go for the high end and breed them like cherry. Shrimp are the easiest things. They'll go in a five and a half gallon bare bottom tank with some java moss. Just throw that in there, feed them and they breed. It's the simplest thing in the world.

Speaker A:

I have a rack of two and a half gallon tanks for all the neocardenia species I can possibly do. And no heat, just a sponge filter. tada.

Speaker B:

I mean, rob's having success, so that should tell you something, right?

Speaker A:

I mean, if I'm doing it, then you know that they work with the catfish that they eat my marijuana. You know what would be possible if.

Speaker B:

They actually ate the catfish.

Speaker A:

I mean, keep dreaming. We'll get a video of that yet from someone that will probably happen.

Speaker B:

One of those big pistol shrimp just.

Speaker A:

Like shoots it right in the heart. Yeah, you're a sick man. All right, well, let's get this topic kicked off. So again, I am not the expert. I have my own stories of turtles, but I'm not a huge fan of keeping turtles. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to hate on turtles. There's a lot of cool turtles out there. A lot of the rare species I find fun. There's even a turtle at Ohio Fish Rescue. I don't know if they still have it. What was that rare turtle that you were mentioning there, Adam? That they had? Yes, why?

Speaker B:

River turtle.

Speaker C:

Those freaking are really nice.

Speaker B:

They're expensive as hell. They're like eight grand a piece.

Speaker A:

Before we go too far in because we're going to treat this as any other interview. Now Jenny, you are resident from our Discord and again, if you guys want to listen to these podcasts live, you can join us on our app called Discord. You go to according to Podcast.com on the bottom the website, you'll find the info and join the debauchery live. We do these right now where it's Monday at seven Central. That's when we start these. So certainly join us. But Jenny is our resident amphibian expert and we're just going to do interview questions with you because that seems fun. So number one, Jenny, what got you into the hobby of amphibians?

Speaker C:

Ever since I was a little girl, I've just always really enjoyed just literally barefoot going out into ponds and just catching all the little critters. And I've just really taken a liking to frogs. I like their cute little just squishy bodies and like their big old eyes. They're so cute. I don't know, there's something about them that just frog fetish jack that and then also the calls that they make. I love listening to different calls and I guess the voices that they have and what species.

Speaker A:

You know, I have these tree frogs outside my basement window where I work because I work from home. Thanks, COVID. And they just sit there and I crack my window open for some fresh air. And I have maybe a dozen or a half dozen frogs sitting down. There just tree frogs on my screen window and they look at me and every time they make a noise, it sounds like my uncle just has acid reflux. So I feel you.

Speaker C:

What color are they?

Speaker A:

Some are green, some are kind of brown, but they all have that kind of leopard pattern blotchiness.

Speaker C:

Honestly, I think I could tell you what they are just by hearing that and knowing about where you live. It actually could be a gray tree frog. I love those trees. My favorite. I collect a bunch of those.

Speaker A:

I literally feel like I have an audience all day because you know how you have I found out that in Minnesota or up north, we have basements. I don't know why the south doesn't have a lot of basements, but in my basement, we have these what would you call them, recessed windows. They're like into the ground, the well windows, but the frogs can't get out. So they just sit down there getting fat off of all the bugs that are in the recessed windows. And it feels like I have an audience staring at me all day.

Speaker C:

Well, your best bet is if you ever find a toad or a frog in one of your wells windows or recessed windows, whatever you call it, your best bet is literally take them out and throw them back outside. Because sometimes, especially if they aren't tree frogs, they cannot get out. So just take those guys and throw them back into nature.

Speaker A:

Survival, the fittest and the gauntlet. I just want to be like, this is sparta, and fill more frogs.

Speaker C:

I like to help them, though.

Speaker A:

Help your frogs? Don't don't be mean. So that's what got you into it. It was apparently your fascination for frogs, and now what do you do with sensibians?

Speaker C:

I basically just have a few bull frogs myself. I have a white tree frog. Some people call them dumpy frogs as well. I also have a green tree frog, which is more native to Florida. They're like little green things with little white stripes on them. I have a couple of gray tree frogs that I've actually raised since tadpoles. They were in a pool. I had a friend's house and they were about to just dump the pool. It's like one of those kiddie pools. I ended up taking like a jarful and grabbing these tadpoles and raising them up. And only two have survived. They're about seven years old, so they're up in age. They're probably about to croak.

Speaker A:

Well, I just got a question answered. I was going to ask the average age of frogs.

Speaker C:

Well, it actually depends on the species. I couldn't tell you most, but gray tree frogs live between five and seven years old or five and eight years old. Mine are about seven. My green tree frogs, I don't know, those I bought at my store is full grown adults. I don't know how those dumpy frogs I want to say they live between eight and ten, but I'm not 100% sure.

Speaker A:

I got a Google dumpy frog.

Speaker B:

Have you seen the video of that one trying to eat the guy's finger?

Speaker C:

Exactly. That's what it is. They're like what you would consider like an actual, quote unquote, pet frog, because most frogs you don't want to touch.

Speaker B:

These things will eat mice. They're actually kind of cool.

Speaker C:

No, dumpy frogs will not eat mice. They don't get that big. You're probably thinking of patty frogs or pixie frogs.

Speaker A:

So I'm looking this up, right? And again, there's common names for everything, just like there is for fish. So is this the white dumpy tree frog, otherwise known as the Australian green tree frog?

Speaker C:

Yes.

Speaker A:

Okay. Yeah, they don't seem to get that big, but I still see a picture of one eating a small mouse.

Speaker C:

I mean, they could possibly, but would never give mine an adult mouse.

Speaker A:

They're very bulbous and cartoony.

Speaker B:

Yeah, there's a video of one trying to eat a guy's finger. It's actually hilarious because it just keeps trying to eat and eat and eat.

Speaker C:

They're literally paid.

Speaker A:

I'm pretty sure that this is a frog that they have on the famous meme video of the frog trying to eat ants off an iphone screen.

Speaker C:

Yes. No, that one actually that's a Pixie frog.

Speaker A:

Oh, my God, there's so many frogs.

Speaker C:

The Pixie frog, also known as the African bullfrog.

Speaker B:

Yeah, those things get big.

Speaker C:

Those ones will eat even rats. I think they're actually the heaviest.

Speaker B:

They get, like, fired frogs.

Speaker C:

No, that's the goliath.

Speaker A:

The goliath one that we had on storytime one, where it's stuck to the back of jimmy's neck. Those are the biggest.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Well, the goliath bullfrogs, they'll actually jump, like, up to, like, 15ft.

Speaker A:

Well, they certainly jumped across a minivan from the back. Can confirm. Can confirm any poison darts.

Speaker C:

I do not own personally any poison darts, but we do have some at our shop.

Speaker B:

Okay. They're a really fun one. I've had a lot of them.

Speaker C:

They are very personal. Okay. So with a lot of frogs, they actually have a lot of personality. What's really cool is you get to know these frogs, and these frogs will kind of start seeing you as a source of food. And so whenever they see you kind of like fish, they'll come up to the tank and be like, oh, my God, there's crickets. And you'll start hand feeding and stuff like that. And even dart frogs, they'll come up to your tongue as you're feeding, trying to pick stuff out of the cage, like cleaning it. They're trying to hit your tongs, and you're just like, no, stop eating the dirt. They're adorable. I love it.

Speaker A:

What do you do at the tailwana?

Speaker C:

So, actually, I'm an animal care manager. Basically, I take care of all the animals within our shop. I make sure everything is nice and healthy. I make sure that all the animals just are where they're supposed to be fed up, tip top shape. If we have any sick animals, I usually pull those guys, keep them in, like, a quarantine area until they're nice and healthy and ready to go back out for sale. I also manage the animal behavior. So not only do I educate customers on how to handle your animal, but I also basically show them whenever you see a certain behavior from an animal, this is what this means, and that kind of stuff. So I just do anything and everything that has to do with our animals in the shop. I even do nail clippings for us.

Speaker A:

Nail clippings? Yeah.

Speaker C:

I do basically bearded dragons or even turtles if you bring them in. I'll do beak trimmings whenever they get too long. Any nails that get too sharp, I can also clip their nails.

Speaker A:

I had no idea that we had to do nail trimmings for lizards, but I guess that makes sense to do it for all the other creatures.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of cases where I actually had this one client come in. She had just rescued a baby bearded dragon, and she was very stunted, and her nails were all curly, cute and everything. Her name was carol baskin.

Speaker A:

Oh, my god.

Speaker C:

Basically, I've been treating this bearded dragons pretty much monthly since she's come in, and her nails went from like this little curly queue to straight. And they're still a little curved, but they're actually coming back out straight just because they're doing maintenance on these nail trims. I mean, it's just like us. Even if you bite your nails, it's still maintaining your nails. If you let them grow out, just look up longest nails in the world, you'll see that they'll impede your hands.

Speaker B:

I've actually had that with guinea pigs that don't get their nails trimmed. Birds. It's bad.

Speaker C:

Oh, yeah.

Speaker A:

Having a pet salon is probably a real thing that you'll see in major cities. Yeah, I love it. All right, so now getting into the turtle conversation. So let's start off with the first statement. So, have you heard, Jenny, of the term aquarium turtle?

Speaker C:

I have.

Speaker A:

So in my mind, right, as being an aquarium guy, an aquarium turtle is a turtle that you have with other fish. Is this at all because we're going to have plenty of beginners or people that are thinking about adding a turtle to a tank. Is there special turtle species to do this with, or should it not be done at all?

Speaker C:

Okay, personal opinion. Shouldn't just because the turtles, they're carnivores or omnivores. So if you keep them with any herbivores but those are tortoises. Don't worry about those. A lot of aquarium turtles that we get can actually harm any fish that we have with them. It doesn't matter big or small, they're always going to nip it fins. So I don't recommend turtles other than fish tank mates unless there are other turtles. Essentially, you can get away with it if you have armored fish like plecos and stuff like that. But I still am very wary of that kind of stuff, because if a turtle isn't fed enough or if they're curious enough, they'll just go after their fence and what problems that can cause, like finrate, all that kind of stuff, you don't want that to happen. Another big issue is turtles. They create a lot of waste. Like a lot. I always recommend whenever you have an. Aquarium turtle, quote, unquote. You want to have the filtration twice as much as your aquarium amount. So say you have a ten gallon. You're going to want a filter that's at least a 20 gallon filtration system, because they create that much amount or that much waste. Another thing is, because of how much waste they produce, you're going to have to do a lot of cleaning and a lot of water changes as well. And along with that waste, they also have salmonella. And salmonella is just like part of their gut flora.

Speaker A:

So you can't really well, I think that's all amphibians. They're all potential carriers of salmonella.

Speaker C:

True.

Speaker A:

Now, I'm going to pause you at that one. So for those that are looking for turtles, don't take this next statement as meaning to dissuade you, but we've talked about this before as stuff. That's bs. So Jimmy can attest to this, and we can ask him next time because it is his birthday. Happy birthday, Mr. colby. But turtles have regulations specifically with the usda. Am I right, Adam?

Speaker B:

Yes, that's the four inch rule.

Speaker A:

And what is the four inch rule, besides how you unzip your pants?

Speaker B:

Okay, that's you. And you're lucky to get four inches. But the four inch rule states that you cannot sell any turtle or torres under four inches unless it is for scientific purposes only in the United States of America.

Speaker C:

That is correct.

Speaker B:

You can export millions of them overseas, which I have friends that do, and it doesn't matter. But only in the United States can you not have anything four inches or under unless it's for scientific purposes.

Speaker A:

You can have them, but you cannot sell them.

Speaker B:

You cannot sell them, but you can sell them if you say that it's for scientific purposes. Like, I'm getting this for my kid to do a science experiment. wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Speaker A:

Right?

Speaker B:

That's the only way around it.

Speaker A:

Some of the stuff. Because Jimmy has been wholesaling for years, right, to different pet stores, including your store. You used to have Adam, and that's how you guys built your relationship together as friends. So Jimmy used to sell turtles to different pet stores, and then the usda got wind of baby turtles being sold at some pet stores, and then the usda said, hey, where did you get those turtles? Then they went to Jimmy and said, hey, Jimmy. And I'm paraphrasing, we can get his exact thing. I think he's mentioned it before the podcast that they said, no, we have to have you recall all the turtles and give their money back, and then we need to slaughter all the turtles.

Speaker B:

That sounds about right from the usda, right?

Speaker A:

So Jimmy contacted a very smart person and then threatened the usda. That, okay, we're going to put this ad in the paper, notifying people to recall their turtles. And on the ad that Jimmy created, it said that, notice to all customers of this pet store, and he had to put out an ad for each pet store's location. Right. And we do the usda regulations. We are recalling turtles for slaughter. Please send your turtle and get your refund back. And of course, the usda is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't have you put that out there. I'm like, Well, I'm going to no, they can keep their turtles. Just stop selling them. Otherwise we'll find you. Okay? So the usda thought on this is kids touch turtles, kids get salamanilla.

Speaker B:

No, kids will stick the turtle in their mouth. The turtle will shit in their mouth. Sorry, you'll have to believe that.

Speaker A:

No, not bleeping. That. So number one, you can get salamanilla from touching an amphibian.

Speaker B:

You're more likely to get it from raw chicken from the grocery store.

Speaker A:

Right. You're more likely to get it from raw chicken from the grocery store, but you can still get cell Manila from touching a turtle. So there is no more risk than it is a small turtle as a big turtle. But the usda thinks that turtles need to shit in kids'mouths, which I don't understand.

Speaker B:

It's the us. The government.

Speaker C:

I think it's also them thinking kids will also be kids. And no matter how you tell them, after you touch your pet turtle, go wash your hands, they're not going to wash their hands. They're going to rub their eye, pick their nose, stick their finger in their ear. Who knows?

Speaker A:

But the point of the matter is that you're going to get it no matter what. And four inches is a bs statement, and I will stand by that all.

Speaker B:

Day, and I will agree with you. It is the dumbest one of the dumbest rules out there.

Speaker C:

Yeah. It really hinders the reptile business whenever we have to sell turtles and tortoises that are over four inches.

Speaker B:

My personal favorite was I had a usda guy come in, and he checked the backs of all the ingredient lists of all my food, and I had to quit selling marshall's Ferret treats because they had beef in them. You know what I'm talking about? Because you work at a store, the Bill Jack treats, they had beef in them. And they said that they were worried about that carrying bovine encephalitis or some weird thing that they weren't treated in the state of Minnesota. You need them treated is what the guy said. So I couldn't sell my treats anymore.

Speaker C:

I've never heard not being able to sell something because of beef, but I'm.

Speaker B:

Not sure it was the usda. I was to the point where I don't even argue with them anymore.

Speaker A:

Beefy. beefy. Right.

Speaker B:

So out of all the aquarium turtles that are probably going to work, the only one that I could think that you could maybe put with a fish if you put them in, like, guppies or sword tails is like little musk turtles.

Speaker C:

Yeah, that's correct. Like musk turtles, map turtles, any of the spiny shell turtles. Like any of the smaller turtles, you still run the risk of them nipping other fishtails, but I mean, they're usually a little bit more placid than, say, your red haired slider or your eastern painted turtle, madamata. Any of those Indonesian snake necks?

Speaker B:

Yeah, those are nice. The pink belly zones are my favorite.

Speaker A:

So let's go through each category. Right. Because I'm new to turtles, more or less. I've had a couple that are just rescues. I've never kept them on purpose, and I think this comes by upbringing. Being raised in central northern Minnesota, I'm in the heart of the lakes. I see turtles every single day across the highway. I grew up in a lake where there's hundreds of turtles. Painted turtles show up on my dock. They actually have turtle races in my hometown of perma. They called me international turtle races. Now, before sensitive people on the podcast are running to your emails to let us know these turtle races are humane, how this happens before we get into deep dive turtles is they go out and collect wild painted turtles from the area. They're trapped, I think, a day in advance, two days in advance, and they take a large batches, probably a few hundred turtles in, and they have kids race the turtles. So what they do is they draw a big circle in the middle of the highway, and again, the highways barred off from traffic, so that safe for kids. And they draw a big circle and then a small circle in the center. They set the turtle down and then release the turtle. And whoever turtle makes it to the outer ring of the big circle first wins. You're not allowed to throw anything at the turtle. You're not allowed to poke your turtle. You cannot touch your turtle after you've released it. All you can do is sit there and try to hope and pray that your turtles first. So if your turtle hits the end of the line, you win and get a prize. Then once that turtle has done his one race, they put him into the back of a truck with a container, and he doesn't race again for the rest of the day, and they re release him that same day. So very humane. Kids get to interact with wildlife, and it's all approved by our local dnr as well.

Speaker C:

That sounds like fun.

Speaker A:

Quite fun. We call them the international turtle races.

Speaker D:

That must be a midwest thing, because I remember doing those things in Fort Wayne when I'd go visit family there. So it must be like just a little bit farther west than midwest than me.

Speaker C:

Well, I live in the midwest. I've never heard of this, but I do like the concept.

Speaker D:

Those are so interesting. That's like going to a mini state fair. I saw a guy that had a snapping turtle, an alligator snapping turtle hat, and it was mechanical with the jaw and he could pull a little string and the jaw was spring loaded and it would chomp. No joke.

Speaker A:

You are allowed to bring your own turtle. They just supply the turtles from the wild. So if you have your own turtle that you think is faster than the rest of the competition, they totally allow it. So I have people that bring baby snapping turtles in because they think when they're smaller size, they run faster.

Speaker B:

They don't.

Speaker A:

Most of the time they don't, but some have won. But you're certainly allowed to bring your own turtle. Fun process. They do have quite rules and regulations exactly, of how things happen to protect the health of the turtles. But fun deal, look up to see if you have a local turtle race near you.

Speaker B:

And be careful with what kind of turtle, because you don't want to be like the one person that brought a wood turtle to the turtle race. That's what happened.

Speaker D:

Now, like an actual piece of wood.

Speaker A:

No.

Speaker B:

In northern Minnesota, there's wood turtles and they're very rare, somewhat like a box turtle.

Speaker C:

The ornate that we have, they're endangered.

Speaker B:

Yeah. And they had caught one in the woods and brought it with them and the lady just said no and took it good.

Speaker A:

Oh, no.

Speaker B:

Yeah, she's like, I'm confiscating this off.

Speaker D:

The movie and just put it like a dnr person.

Speaker B:

Well, they work with the dnr and they know what's legal because there's blandings turtles in Minnesota, too, and those are so illegal you can't even touch them.

Speaker A:

Yeah, but that's outside of the rules and competition that's more of you can't have those turtles.

Speaker B:

Yeah, that has nothing it's just illegal to have them.

Speaker C:

Well, it's good that there's people there that are educated enough to take away these turtles that should not be raised.

Speaker A:

Well, that most of the time the dnr show up to these events as well because it's education and they're happy to try to assist with these events. But regardless, now we'll get into turtle facts. So as a non turtle novice, number one question is, what do I put my turtle in? So if I had a turtle just because I grew up where I did, I would have the kitty pond. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm going to make it so they can't crawl out of it, have as much area to swim roam as possible, and also probably put like an island in the middle where they can send themselves with the heat lamp. But that's me not holding turtles. So where would you keep turtles and how?

Speaker C:

Honestly, that's actually not that far off. As long as you have a good swimming area for them to go around forage, for food, whatever they want. They also need an area where they can dry off as well, because if you do not have an area for them to dry off, their shell will actually rot. So you need any even if it's like, say, almost 100% aquatic turtle, you still need, like, an area just to make sure. Like, if they just want to go and hang out in a spot just to dry off. You need your heat, and also you need your uvb. uvb is a very big, important thing that people don't think about for turtles. Do you know what uv is?

Speaker A:

I don't I was just about to ask you this.

Speaker C:

So uvb is actually, I don't know, turtles, man. Well, that's more of a reptile thing. But you can also use uvb to sterilize your tank. That's kind of like that uv ray kind of thing. But the uvb is basically a type of radiation that the sun gives off that gives us, like, human sunburn, but it actually allows reptiles to metabolize their calcium. If you do not give your reptiles or turtle uvb, basically what will happen is that the turtle's body will start taking the calcium from their bones and using it internally in their own body and passing it through, and they'll get something called metabolic bone disease. So even if you pump them full of calcium, like, say you give them crickets and turnip greens with just even cuttlefish bones, if you give them anything that has calcium in it, it'll just pass right through the body. You need to have a pvb so they can process that.

Speaker A:

I'm assuming that wild turtles get that from the normal sunshine, and that's why.

Speaker C:

They sunbathe exactly in captivity. They need the uvb bulbs, and they do expire, too. So people don't realize that even if a bulb a uvb bulb is still on, doesn't mean that it's actually still giving off that radiation. And so I need to do a six month check every six months. You need to check your uvb, essentially.

Speaker D:

That will my party light work? Can I use my little black light party light? Can I turn the candles low?

Speaker C:

No, you cannot use that. You actually need to go to your local reptile store, even if it's like petco petsmart or just like your fls. I don't even know fish stores would carry it. Probably not.

Speaker A:

But you can contact the Tide iguana directly. Yeah.

Speaker C:

You can also contact us if you have any questions. We're more than happy to answer your questions. Your best bet is to actually take your if you have a uvb bulb, go to your reptile store. Usually they'll be able to check your uvb. Essentially. We do check ups for completely free. Just bring in your bulb. We'll check it for you and let you know if it's good to go.

Speaker D:

Rotate our tires and everything.

Speaker C:

Lug nuts and everything.

Speaker A:

Oh, man. I was going to say I never knew that turtles have a lot in common with superman. You were saying, Adam?

Speaker B:

Oh, I was just going to say they make uvb meters, but they're kind of expensive. But if you have a lot of animals and you have a lot of bulbs, then you can check all your bulbs at the same time. And that's something you could think about. But yeah, change them every six months or so. Six to nine months.

Speaker C:

Stay up at the top. We actually do a monthly check of all of our uvb bulbs anyway, just to make sure, because sometimes a bad bulb will come in. Like, say we have something called solar glows, which is a two and one. So it's a heat and uvb all in one. The mercury vapor pool.

Speaker A:

That is expensive.

Speaker C:

They're expensive, but the really nice thing about them is they last a very long time. We've had to last over a year on uvb, not just heat and like everything else, but their uvb will last over a year. But we still check a monthly because sometimes they're manufactured improperly and the uvb doesn't output as much as it should and it's just as bad, but it's very rare. But we still check it just in case.

Speaker B:

And they cause second degree burns.

Speaker C:

I've actually got a couple of stars from some mercury vapors.

Speaker D:

Do those work with timers or dimmers?

Speaker C:

So mercury vapors do not work with dimmers at all. Neither do uvb bulbs. Any of your heat lamps, like any specific bulbs, or it's heat uvb or a combination of both. We do not recommend dimmers at all. It does work with timers, though. Timers are completely fine as long as it's in the on off. Do not have a timer where it starts dim and then goes to a bright to a certain time. It's either an on off function good question.

Speaker A:

All right, so we have double the filtration. I'm just trying to go through the list here. Make sure that whatever tank, container, mini, pond, whatever you want to put them in, they have to have places where they can dry off and sunbathe. With uvb, you need to charge up by superman. What other environmental? Most turtles that I know of can stand, especially because I'm in Minnesota, they're wild here. They can certainly withstand some cold. But is there turtles that we have to worry about to a certain temperature in the water?

Speaker C:

From my experience, I really don't know of any turtles that need a heater in their water as long as they have a place to sit in sunbathe. There might be some tropical turtles such as, like the Mata mata or the flying soft flower turtle. Yeah. And then also the Indonesian snake turtles, like any of those, any of the tropical ones. It wouldn't hurt to maybe put a heater on there, but I wouldn't go above 75 on most of those because turtles always seem to use water as an escape from the heat, essentially, so they can stay cooler. But it's also a way for them to scavenge and stuff like that.

Speaker A:

So any other recommendations as far as requirements for the housing of the turtle substrate? Like, for instance, we just learned that bashirs, you shouldn't be using gravel because if they accidentally eat a piece, they can't shit it out. So you sand is the same thing like a turtle?

Speaker C:

Yes and no. So with turtles, I usually just say bare bottom. Or if you use any kind of substrate, just use any kind of loose substrate like sand or like a very small gravel, because then they'll still be able to poop out the small gravel. Still not great for them. That's why we usually use floating foods.

Speaker A:

If we have any animals, they will eat rock on accident.

Speaker C:

Yes. I mean, like any other animal, like if they see food in the dirt, they're going to go after it. They're going to eat it.

Speaker B:

Go shrimp.

Speaker C:

Yeah, they'll definitely go shrimp. Those are pretty tasty. Another thing is people don't really think about but the land that the turtle actually sits on is not just a floating rock. You can also have substrate. So say if you have a pair of turtles, like a male and a female, whenever your female wants to lay, now you have some substrate such as pete moss, mix with some sand, stuff like that, you could have that is where they go and sit and hang out on that. subtract for turtles are pretty easy. Just keep it nice and loose. Just nothing too big.

Speaker D:

Essentially pete moss and chill toast.

Speaker A:

So as far as feeding your turtle, I've heard a lot of things. Adam, what do you recommend feeding your turtles?

Speaker B:

Well, there's floating turtle pellets and fish.

Speaker A:

Don'T do beef that the usda puts in ferret snacks.

Speaker B:

Yeah, well, the usda didn't it's the food company got you.

Speaker A:

So sticks is the most common.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

We have a question here in discord and you recommend actually feeding turtles on purpose stuff like feeder guppies?

Speaker C:

Yeah, that's totally fine.

Speaker B:

Like goldfish?

Speaker C:

Well, goldfish they like and what, like bb, vitamin B?

Speaker B:

Yeah. So once you freeze them, then you have to freeze them because they release a chemical that actually kills off it, destroys vitamin B and stuff that it eats. That's why they're not good for fish either. But they'll eat them. But yeah, you should feed them dead stuff.

Speaker A:

So I've heard the thing for fish, right. We try not to feed live food because we don't know where it came from. It's not the healthiest choice. There may be bacteria or disease that the fish itself has. Are we less worried about that with a turtle because frankly they're not going to get fish diseases, or are we still a bit paranoid about that?

Speaker C:

I honestly have never had any issues with live feeding fish to a turtle. Obviously you're going to have the key with any animal is variety is key. You don't just feed straight goldfish don't just feed straight. Feeder guppies don't just feed straight pellets. You always want to have a varied diet. Sometimes you could cut off a piece of raw chicken and feed that to your turtle, depending on what kind of turtle it is, that kind of stuff. But if you're going to feed them just a straight diet of something, always go with the pellet because it has more stuff in it versus just goldfish or just chicken slices or chicken livers, that kind of stuff.

Speaker A:

They're trash cans is what I'm getting from this.

Speaker C:

Yeah, that's what they do. They scavenge the bottom. They're kind of like catfish a little bit. Obviously they'll come up to the service and eat, like, some algae and like worms and even baby ducks sometimes that will be something across the lake.

Speaker B:

There's a really cool video of that.

Speaker C:

Yeah, but they're also like catfish, and they'll scavenge the bottom for food.

Speaker B:

And if you have an omnivorous turtle, they really love strawberries.

Speaker C:

Yes, but be very careful with any kind of fruits such as strawberries. It's very high in sugar, which can actually cause mouth rot. So be very careful with that. Even though they can wash it away, I would still consider to treat rather than just like a part of their staple diet.

Speaker A:

I'm just beside myself. I'm so used to fish, having very refined diets, being picky about this stuff. Like, ooh, only the best food to do. Now you're basically like, I don't know, take a shit in the tank, see.

Speaker C:

If they eat it pretty much how turtles are. They're literally trash cans.

Speaker A:

This is the last thing I expected from you guys. it'd be like, no, they need this specified diet. We even got, like a damn light bulb. You have to do special but food, nah, they'll eat a toe.

Speaker C:

It just still doesn't hurt to have a more refined diet. Make sure it's a variety. Just make sure even throw, say, turnip greens or your mustard greens. Just blanche them for like ten minutes in some boiling water and put them in the water. The turtle will eat that. That's still really good for them. It gives them some fiber and a little bit of, like what other nutrition?

Speaker A:

I got a local kid, and he comes over and I have all kinds of Cornwall and cubby grass. And he just takes buckets and buckets of it. Oh, my turtle eat it. And he just dumps it in there, and it's sure enough it disappears.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

What about other plants and doing like, a planet type tank? How well does that work out for turtles?

Speaker C:

I wouldn't be more worried about the turtle eating them rather than actually, like, digging up the plants and just uprooting.

Speaker A:

All your hard work looking for worms.

Speaker C:

Pretty much earthworms.

Speaker B:

They love earthworms, too.

Speaker C:

They love earthworms.

Speaker A:

It's not beside yourself to treat your turtle. Go to your local bait shop and just buy night crawlers.

Speaker C:

Yes, you can totally do that. You can also pick up maybe even mealworms. that'd be totally fine as well. Even waxworms, whatever kind of crawlers. creepy crawlers. That your bait shop has. You can totally feed that to your turtle, just don't make it your staple. Your staples should always be the pelleted food.

Speaker A:

On some other cases, like you have Chinese bearded dragons. Generally, we do like crickets, right? And before you put crickets or mealworms in whatever you're feeding, you decide to toss them in some of this vitamin powder. Do turtles need supplements like vitamin powders?

Speaker C:

Oh, very much so. I mean, there's no other way for them to get it other than us to give it to them. It's like giving them a cuddle bone. But if your turtle doesn't want to chew on that cuddle bone, where else they're going to get their calcium? So you have to supplement whatever diet you have with either your calcium supplements, your vitamin supplements, those are in the pellets or sticks.

Speaker A:

In this situation, in any of the.

Speaker C:

Pellets and sticks like that, they should be already grounded up into that form.

Speaker B:

Got you.

Speaker A:

So if you're not using them and you're only using the weird feeding them toes or something else that isn't processed like that, make sure that you're using some sort of powder to put them.

Speaker C:

In something like that. Or say if you're feeding them like goldfish or rosy reds for the week, you're not going to be able to dust your rosy reds. It's just going to wash off in the water.

Speaker A:

But if you're using I don't know.

Speaker C:

If you're using crickets where they sit on the water and then swim away, but they're not completely submerged, they're still covered in calcium. So when your turtle comes up to eat them, they get a little bit of calcium.

Speaker A:

All right, this is going to be inhumane, but hear me out, right? I'm a guy coming from the outside in. I might have a million dollar idea. You can take it, give permission. Not for the listeners. This is for Jenny only. So what if you decide to take that powder, mix it in a little water, put it in a syringe and inject your crickets? No, maybe it's in there.

Speaker C:

Okay, you can, but it's what, you're going to kill the cricket and if you don't feed that cricket, it's work.

Speaker A:

I use cricket as the example. So rosy reds in most states are bait fish, right? You can buy their phones are made of calcium, right? So you get a rosy red, you inject it syringe, and you throw it in there saying, best of luck. It'll wobble a little bit. It seems a bit cruel. But hey, is it going to get the vitamin if you want the aquarium.

Speaker D:

Guys podcast does not endorse two things. I just got a note from HR. I don't know who hired them, but.

Speaker B:

You know, I really missed Jim because he just snaps them in the nuts.

Speaker A:

Collar. I want to know how you mean it is still. And also, I like how we use juicing in the actual term, like a turkey baster. That's hilarious.

Speaker C:

In the reptile word, it's called gut loaded.

Speaker A:

Yeah, well, it could not be in the gut. It's but loaded. Maybe if you use a syringe correctly.

Speaker D:

When you feed your feeders particular things, you gut load them.

Speaker C:

Exactly.

Speaker D:

But at least they're voluntarily putting it in their gut.

Speaker A:

Hey, contact legal copyright, but loaded.

Speaker D:

I think I think Pete is at my door right now.

Speaker A:

Done. Just because of bait fish, I'm still beside myself. So we have some sort of tank now. What's the minimum? I'd say like a 40 gallon for small turtles only. Yeah, we got to have that for beginners. That like, Mom, I have a ten gallon tank. I want to have a turtle, you know, be human.

Speaker B:

Theoretically, you could have baby musk turtles in a ten gallon, but they'll need bigger tanks.

Speaker A:

Yeah, but you're not lying anywhere.

Speaker C:

We'll start about 15 years earlier where I actually had a couple of turtles myself, and I start with the ten gallon tank. I know that's shocking. Well, actually what had happened was basically I kept them I had these turtles for three years. I had them in a ten gallon. I eventually moved them up to like a 30 tall, but I knew that they needed heat, place to sit out and everything. But the uvb they got is every week I dumped their tanks and I'd let them sit outside for a couple of hours while I cleaned out their tank and refilled up back their water and stuff like that. Honestly learning that because after three years of having them, they were definitely stunted. They were little Eastern painted turtles, and they only got maybe three and a half, three and a half, four inches. So they were definitely very stunted. And I eventually actually let them go back into the wild, back into the pond that I eventually found these baby turtles at. And now, knowing what I know now, I should have started with at least a 40 gallon tank. You can start with a ten gallon tank for like, maybe the first week of their life. But then, man, these turtles, they grow so fast. You really need to have at least you don't need necessarily a deep tank, just a tank large enough for them to come up and sit underneath the bulb, get their uvb, get their heat, that kind of stuff, and then just enough water for them to dive down. At least a body length, like a.

Speaker D:

20 long would be perfect because it's kind of short, but it's got a length for a lot of lengths for them to swim, and you don't have to fill it all the way.

Speaker C:

A 20 long is definitely a good starter tank for the first, like, maybe even just six months a year is kind of pushing it. But six months of a turtle's life whenever you first get it, if it's small enough, minimum, with most turtles, you want a 75 gallon. That's including like, red eared sliders, because read your sliders, most people don't realize they will get 16 inches and more.

Speaker A:

So what's the turtle best for beginners and what's the hardest turtle to keep, in your opinion?

Speaker C:

I couldn't really say the hardest turtle, because they all sort of have we'll.

Speaker A:

Make Adam answer that question. So what's the easiest turtle, jenny, honestly.

Speaker C:

The easiest turtle is any of your just like, little sliders, like even the ready, even though minimum 75 gallons, most turtles are actually pretty damn pretty darn easy. They really don't take much. They're pretty hardy. As long as you're giving them the proper UVB, proper heat, proper varied diet, you're good to go. Most turtles, they're going to survive pretty much whatever you throw at them. They're basically feeder fish.

Speaker A:

No, it's going in there. What's the hardest turtle, in your experience owning a pet store that you just basically either didn't carry or told people that you should probably work your way up to this turtle?

Speaker B:

Now, she went with the reddards as the easiest one, but I always said that they were the most pain in the ass. Well, because they get so big. Those are the most common little turtles or the red haired ciders, they're the most easily bred, they're the most common. And I always have a problem with them because people will get them and they'll see this little tiny 50 cent piece sized turtle and they'll go, okay, we're good. And then they get those stupid little plastic jenny knows what I'm talking about. Those stupid plastic things with the island and the palm tree, and they think that this turtle is going to live in yeah, they're just garbage. So I always said that for like, my opinion is an easy one, is like maybe a mata mata, which is expensive. They're like 500, $600, but they're easy. They're completely easy. Or like a musk turtle. But the ready and sliders, they move around and they have more personality, in my opinion. But that's my just I don't know. Everybody has different opinions on things.

Speaker C:

Yeah, a lot of turtles just have different needs, but they're mostly so you're saying the reduced sizes are only harder to take care of because they need that bigger tank. If you're willing to throw that bigger size tank for a turtle, they're totally fine. But if you're wanting that smaller turtle, like if you're wanting to stay at that 20 long, a must turtle would be just fine, but you're still going to need that land.

Speaker B:

Yeah, but most people that I had to deal with were like, oh, I can just throw the map turtle or a snapping turtle and just throw it in a 20 gallon tank and it's fine for his whole life. And it's like, no, dude, they get big and they need certain things.

Speaker A:

So let's go talk about turtle diseases. So generally with fish, the most common is ic. There's a lot of others that go down the rabbit hole. But what's the most common stuff you see? And how do you treat turtles?

Speaker C:

I honestly couldn't really say too much on that because I haven't really okay. So at Title iguana, we don't sell turtles just mostly for the fact.

Speaker A:

You just help turtle customers, basically.

Speaker C:

With any diseases. We basically just tell them to go to their local reptiles, that we don't really have much in the way of treating turtles themselves. In my experience of having turtles, I've never really had an issue with any diseases. The only thing I've had is maybe, say, a couple of the turtles have gotten into a rustle and they lose a digit and stuff like that. I honestly don't know too much in the way of diseases for turtles.

Speaker B:

Okay. The only two that I know that show up a lot, but they show up mostly in box turtles are abscessed ears, which turtles have ears. And I have seen that, and I've actually seen that in aquatic turtle, and they had to go to the vet for that. I don't know how it got an abscessed ear. And then vitamin A deficiency where their eyes swell up.

Speaker A:

That's one of the things where you don't necessarily have a disease. You just have a malnutrition issue. I mean, that's not like I did something wrong, this happened. I wouldn't really call that a disease. Whereas other things like fish, I can have a perfectly fine fish, but then I introduce something to the water and it caught something. It's not because of the diet I was giving it. So there isn't, like, turtle herpes that we have to worry about commonly that happen?

Speaker B:

No, only if you're a teenage kid that has a turtle bite is.

Speaker A:

Like.

Speaker D:

Something for story time. Or did we cover that on a story time already?

Speaker A:

We did, and there was only a million swears. I think recently we just ran out of ducks. I think we finally upgraded a machine to beeps because ducks are just getting too expensive with COVID nowadays.

Speaker D:

The dnr called. You said you're too many ducks in your podcast. We need to save some for nature.

Speaker A:

It finally happened. What am I missing with turtles? Because with fish, we go into that more detail. They have these PH requirements, but they take their oxygen from the air, so we don't have to worry about water quality as much, although we have to have double filtration.

Speaker B:

So turtles breathe from their butt, too.

Speaker C:

I was just about to say that.

Speaker A:

The rational vote on frogs and we finish with butt breathing. Yes. I'm going to gut load of fish while you talk about this, just because I don't believe you.

Speaker C:

So the main reason why turtles breathe through their butts is because whenever they're in brumation throughout the winter, they actually will hibernate underneath the water, and they will use their butts to basically just take an oxygen whenever they're underneath the water. Their heart rate will go down to, like, literally, like it's almost nothing a minute.

Speaker A:

So when I panic, do I breathe out of my butt? No, that's just a fart. Never mind.

Speaker B:

You talk through your ass.

Speaker A:

I talk through my ass. Okay. Thank you for closing exhale.

Speaker C:

Have you tried inhaling?

Speaker A:

I tried inhaling. I'll get right on that. I'm going to inhale some air after this just to be sure. Oh, my God. I did Google it, and you guys are right. I thought you're just sitting there feeding me lines. I hate you people. There actually is ASP gasps why would.

Speaker B:

We lie about this?

Speaker A:

Because it's fun to pick on robs, who doesn't have turtles.

Speaker B:

Robs, you're getting the turtles next time I see you.

Speaker A:

No, I'm not giving you answers to ask resuscitation. No, you're going to get a four inch turtle, and you can just oh, my God.

Speaker C:

Four inch aquarium turtle?

Speaker B:

Yes, an aquarium turtle.

Speaker A:

All right, I'm just going to pause it there for the sake of sake of this. What are we missing? What are some of the common mistakes that people have besides bad light bulbs?

Speaker C:

Really? It's just people. Not really. The main question we get is whenever people call into the shop, they're like, you got any turtles? What kind are you looking for? The water one. People don't realize that whenever they are looking for turtles, they're thinking of a red ear slider, because that's the most common one. They don't realize that there's multiple different species, such as, like, the Map turtle or the Musk turtle, all that kind of stuff. We can't tell if they're talking about tortoises either, because have you ever heard the saying, a tortoise is a turtle, but a turtle is not a tortoise? You ever heard that before?

Speaker A:

I have, but I never gave it much thought. I'm still on butt breathing. I'm sorry.

Speaker C:

My brain has to do with hibernation roomation, that kind of stuff.

Speaker A:

Buttbreathing.com. All right, not to go off of the subject, we also have questions more from the audience. What are your thoughts on the current laws regarding fly river turtles? So what are the laws?

Speaker B:

Adam actually had to I'm looking that up right now, because the law might have changed from when I could get them back. When I saw him on List, they were like, $8,000 a piece, and now they're like, $2,500, dude, that's nothing for a turtle. I have a friend. You know those Amazon turtles? The big giant ones? That the red what the hell are they? They're like the size of a car tire or bigger. They're like, the size of a truck tire.

Speaker A:

Sure. galapagos.

Speaker B:

Those are the we're talking about the aquatic turtles from the Amazon River. One of my friends brought a bunch of those in, and I didn't even know you could get those. To be quite honest, I thought they were under sighties. But let's see here. Just give me 1 second.

Speaker A:

While you look that up. Is UVB essential for species that are super aquatic? And they list mata mata and fly river turtles. We spoke of Mata mata and you said yes, but are fly river turtles.

Speaker C:

Sorry for requiring. Yes. I mean, any kind of turtle themselves, like, if most turtles work in the daytime, they're mostly diurnal. UVB is definitely a must, especially if they sit up and bask. The fly river turtles, I don't think.

Speaker B:

They come out of the water at all. If it's eggs.

Speaker C:

Yes. So I would say it's not 100% required. But it doesn't hurt to have that UVB just for the fact of, like, whenever they're up and they have their nose out and they're just sitting there and they'll get a little bit of UVB, it doesn't hurt. It's almost going to get a little off topic here, but having a bird as a pet UVB is also very nice to have. Even as a person, UVB is nice to have. That's where you get that's where we.

Speaker A:

Get our vitamin D. Jenny, just for your information, I get all my son from lcd monitor tans. All right.

Speaker C:

Pretty freaking bright over there. Is your contrast a bit high?

Speaker A:

It's not. He's very white.

Speaker B:

Rob goes in the sun and he burns.

Speaker A:

Yes, I do like a little ginger boy. A few months ago, my res help me with that. Thank you. Red ear slider was lethargic and basking all day. So it sounds like it has rob's disease, where he's fat and lazy. She refused to eat when in the water, could barely swim. At first I thought she was gravid, but after building a nest, she wasn't. I thought maybe she had respiratory infection, but according to the vet, she didn't. A week later, she returned to normals. If nothing happened, any ideas what she was experiencing? I feel like, as a total expert in the last ten minutes, that she couldn't breathe correctly out of her butt.

Speaker B:

No.

Speaker A:

Damn. All right, what is it?

Speaker B:

Actually, I thought about that one and I've actually seen turtles. They'll go and if everything's not perfect, they'll go through the process of laying eggs. I've seen this in reptiles, too. And then they'll get ready to lay eggs, and then they'll just turn around and reabsorb their eggs. So that could have been what it was.

Speaker A:

That actually happens with fish on occasion as well.

Speaker C:

There's two things. So, one, whenever we get a question regarding even, like, a phone call to the shop, hey, my beard dragon or My turtle hasn't been eating for the past week, what's going on? The first two questions to ask is, like, one, how old is your UVB? Have you checked it lately? Have you got it tested? When was the last time you had it changed? Two, what's your heat like? What makes sure your basking areas are up to temp? If those two questions right there are answered correctly, it's a recent UVB the UVB test came back fine. It's totally fine. The heat came back fine. It's totally like basking temp. The second thing is if what she was saying or this question was saying was they went to go lay, but nothing came out. There's also something called something called being egg bound, which is a big issue. That would be something you'd have to go to your local vet or herp vet for. Usually they do X rays, and then they can usually give you any meds to help pass any of those over calcified, over mentalized eggs.

Speaker A:

Interesting. Well, next question is best shell care product. Are there actually Turtle wax buffing kits?

Speaker C:

Yes and no. I personally don't like to use any of the waxing kind of stuff because basically what you're doing is taking that's a real thing.

Speaker A:

I just made that as a it is.

Speaker C:

No, it really is.

Speaker A:

Well, I mean, they do do breathing butt farts.

Speaker C:

That's their butt, not their shell. Either way. Yes, they do do waxing stuff for turtles and tortoises. I'm actually against them because they actually leave this residue over their shell to where it will actually stay for a while, and they can't actually absorb that EVP that they require any major water turtles, like fly, river turtles, they don't really need that kind of stuff. If you ever want to just clean your turtle shell instead of using that wax, like whatever turtle shell extravaganza, whatever kind of stuff they try to sell you over the shop, we just recommend literally just take a toothbrush and some water, just scrub out all the spots. That's it.

Speaker A:

All right, so no turtle buffing needed. So what about painting your turtle shell? Is that recommended? What is the risk?

Speaker C:

Thank you. scraps.

Speaker A:

I hear a lot of people do that, and I also hear that people and this is from my own experience in my area, we have turtle races. So some people bring their turtles in and put temporary paint on the back of the turtle just so they can mark their turtle. They discourage that it is not band as long as it's temporary paint.

Speaker C:

I recommend actually just chalk because it's something you can just wash right off.

Speaker A:

I think that's kind of what they're using.

Speaker C:

Yeah. Do not use paint because it may not seem like it, but turtle shells are quite breathable. They can actually absorb any kind of, like, stuff that's been just put onto their shell. I actually one time at the shop, had a tortoise come in and it was painted with nail polish. I actually spent my own money to get non acetone nail polish remover just to remove this stuff because it's kind of like the wax. They're not going to be able to absorb their UVB, and it's just quite unhealthy for the animal.

Speaker A:

Interesting. What about no, that wouldn't work either. Okay, this is my personal question. I didn't get this from a fan, but if your turtle. If you have, like, a tortoise, not an aqua turtle, is it okay to use those little fake finger skateboards on the bottom of their belly so they can move faster?

Speaker C:

As long as you don't use an adhesive, that's totally okay.

Speaker A:

So what if you use, like, big rubber bands, and that's not leaving the turtle real tight?

Speaker B:

It's not very nice, but if you leave them on for too long, or vans can cut into their shell as they grow.

Speaker A:

Okay, so what would be a nice adhesive to stick here?

Speaker C:

Use your rubber band. Just don't use it for more than, like, half an hour or something. I don't know. It just seems kind of cruel because they can feel that pressure of turtles. Turtle and tortoise shells are very sensitive. If you've ever seen, like, just look up somebody scratching a turtle's butt, and you can see them, they're moving. They're wiggling their butt. They're really enjoying that. They can actually take your finger and hit your fingernail. That's about as good as they can feel like they can still feel it. They can scratch. You can feel the pressure and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker A:

I just feel like this kid that just sits there and goes back here.

Speaker C:

Live at the waterfront, my friend, the zombie Jonathan. You're looking good. Jonathan just got an awesome turtles. What do you think? I like turtles.

Speaker A:

I feel like that kid right there. I like turtles. And then he decides to superglue a skateboard at the bottom of your turtle. Don't do that. Be nice to your turtle. Don't paint your turtles. Only turtles can have fun hats, right? Is that the line?

Speaker C:

As long as they can tip it.

Speaker A:

Off, my lady not on her head. Just set a hat on the turtle.

Speaker C:

That's totally fine.

Speaker A:

Your turtle may stay. I'm going to get punched in the throat with Jimmy next week.

Speaker B:

Oh, yeah.

Speaker C:

I was actually quite upset that he wasn't here today, but happy birthday.

Speaker A:

Happy birthday, butthole. Make sure you can breathe out of it. All right? I'm not too sure if there's any we finally got some feedback now I'm not too sure if there's any new laws. Just found the laws and regulations seem to be quite confusing. Right. I found it from 2014 of the Pygnos turtles. Apparently there's some regulations on it, and I think it's having to do with poaching and importing. I don't see any bands, and I know friends that have pig nose turtles and fly river turtles, so I don't think that there's anything on it. But I could be wrong. I mean, these laws are ever moving target, for sure, but down here in.

Speaker C:

Illinois, they're saying that you can't technically catch. Okay, so they're saying we're just talking.

Speaker A:

About national laws as well. We're not talking about state laws are very much different. State person like Minnesota can't even import any types of crayfish, okay? Mainly because of the spiny red crayfish that have now invaded Minnesota. So check your local laws and all of this. We're just talking about some federals but anything else that we missed, guys? As far as at least generalistic topics?

Speaker C:

Not that I can think of. As long as you don't have any other questions for me, I feel pretty good about it.

Speaker A:

I just feel like I need to YouTube some information. Breathing on turtles, singing out their buttholes. Because if they can breathe, they can yodel not an expert, but I need to know this, or at least that's what it is from its butthole.

Speaker B:

Okay, I just figured out turtlegate 2020 turtlegate. Okay, here's what happened. Fly river turtles got put on sites. Appendix Two.

Speaker A:

That's been like that for years, though.

Speaker B:

No, apparently it wasn't when I was back a few years, like even five years ago. I don't think it was. They were on site's appendix too, looking it up.

Speaker A:

January 2005 is setius penix Two.

Speaker B:

Well, then they've been on there for a while. But.

Speaker A:

The site is appendix Two does not necessarily according to what I can see, it's restricted, not banned. So we'll have to update on this. Yeah, that's listening to the podcast. Send it in again. According to podcast.com Bottom, the website, we need to know this information so people can know how to correctly not get pinned by the usda, by turtles.

Speaker C:

Honestly, if you have any other questions about turtles, just give us a call. The tideyeguana.com our numbers on the website. I don't know if you want me to give out the number, but that.

Speaker A:

Is up to you. I certainly have to call, you know what I mean?

Speaker C:

Yeah, I mean, you could also just ask for Jenny for any questions. So our number is actually 618-642-8003. That's our number for the tight ended. iguana check out our website, check out our Facebook. We even have a YouTube channel. All that fun stuff.

Speaker A:

Tell them the aquarium guy sent you.

Speaker C:

Yes, exactly. We not only do reptiles, but we also do fish as well. So we do have freshwater fish, plants and stuff like that.

Speaker A:

I have a final question.

Speaker C:

Sure.

Speaker D:

Since this is kind of a bridge podcast between the two worlds of reptile and fish, would recommending a turtle be something you would still do for someone who's not into fish or aquatics? Or is it a good bridge for people like fish to get into reptiles?

Speaker C:

How do you feel about that as.

Speaker D:

Far as the background experience of somebody new coming in?

Speaker C:

For somebody that's going from reptile to fish or fish to reptile?

Speaker D:

Well, for somebody that's new with no background in aquatics versus somebody new with.

Speaker C:

Background in aquatic, honestly, who is it better for? I would say that turtles would definitely be a good platform to start for going in either direction. Just for the fact that you're still going to have to want your.

Speaker A:

What.

Speaker C:

Do you call it, cycling your tank cycles and all that kind of fun stuff.

Speaker D:

So your fundamentals are the same?

Speaker C:

Yeah. But you also need that platform for them to sun and bask like most reptiles with the UVB and heat. So it is that bridge between both of them. So it's definitely the best of both worlds.

Speaker A:

I mean, come on. Any creature that you can feed but loaded rosy reds to, that's a fun creature that you need to try out again.

Speaker B:

Podcast does not advise stuffing syringes full.

Speaker C:

Of and neither does titan iguana.

Speaker A:

Nobody does. Think outside the bun.

Speaker C:

Think outside the butt.

Speaker A:

Think outside the butt. Oh, man. At that note, we're going to end the podcast, guys. If you enjoyed what you heard, you want to help us out, go to cornby's podcast. But on the website.

Speaker C:

Give us a couple of bucks.

Speaker A:

You know, it helps keep the lights on. And maybe Jimmy will come back to us.

Speaker B:

He might not after that one, except to punch you in the froze.

Speaker A:

Well, we're going to see you guys next week. I'm going to go get Jimmy.

Speaker C:

I wish I would be touched on the throat.

Speaker A:

That's a T shirt right there. Thanks, guys, for listening to podcast. Please go to your favorite place where podcasts are found, whether it be spotify, itunes, stitcher, wherever they can be found, like subscribe. And make sure you get push notifications directly to your phone so you don't miss great content like this.

Speaker C:

I never knew that a Minnesota accent could be so sexy until I heard adam's voice.

Speaker B:

Go frank yourself.

Speaker A:

Don't you know that's my boy? Don't you know.

Episode Notes

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