red eared slider turtles

Question
hi i recently purchased 2 small red eared slider turtles from a street fair.  I have had them for a little over a month and keep them in a tank wit water. anyway today i brought them outside and laid them in the grass. they were running and seemed to really be enjoying themselves. I have never seen them as active before. I was just wondering about releasing them into their natural habitat. Do you think this is a good idea? will they survive? and what is an ideal place for releasing them? i live in new york city. please help. thanks a lot.

Answer
Unfortunately, Trachemys scripta elegans (commonly known as the red-eared slider) only ranges north to Virginia, so it is highly unlikely that your little pets would survive the winter in the wild.  

You should also be aware that red-eared slider turtles grow to be about a foot long and will need an enclosure that is an absolute minimum of three feet by three feet, with six feet by three feet being substantialy preferable.  You will want to consider setting up what is known as a vivarium for them, which is an enclosure that is part land and part water.  Several methods are worth considering, and they range from putting a pile of aquarium gravel on one side of the enclosure to purchasing a turtle platform to actually constructing a platform that takes up about half of the tank and allows the turtle to swim under it as well.

Turtles produce a considerable amount of waste, so you'll want to look at a couple of different options for keeping their enclosure clean.  The easiest method is to purchase a canister filter for fish tanks.  They typically start at about $100 and go up from there.  

Another method is to use a plastic box that is about the size of half of the enclosure and to raise the floor level of the rest of the vivarium to be even with the edge of the box by filling it with aquarium gravel or sanitary soil or any number of other substrates.  You then simply pull out the water box and clean it when it needs to be done.  Unfortunately, that will be several times a day and you will find that you often make a mess while trying to clean up after your turtles.

If you need any further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me and I'm sorry I wasn't able to give you better news.  Best of luck with your pets.