My baby turtles loves to lay by the filter..

Question
Hello, my name is nina, about a month or so ago I purchased  two baby turtles. One is clearly a red slider the other I am not sure their shells are different. My question is, is it normal for them to want to be next to the filter I have a Elite Stingray 10. Also how long does it take them to grow? Thank you.

Answer
You have a filter rated for only 10 gallons, which means you must have either too small of a tank, or not enough filter because a 10 gallon tank would be too small, and your filter should be rated for 1.5 to 2x the size if the tank. For two babies you need to start out with about a 20-30 gallon tank and 30-60 gallon capacity filter. Aquatic turtles produce a lot of waste and some turtles are not as receptive to unclean water conditions, particularly a Map turtle if that is what you have.

Follow up on this question and attach a picture of the two next to a ruler or something for scale.

Some turtles like to hang around the filter outlet to let the clean oxygenated water and bubbles wash over them, but it could also indicate that the water quality is not what they want and they are staying under the cleanest spot. You need to make sure you are using dechlorinated water too.

http://www.anapsid.org/mainchelonians.html
http://www.anapsid.org/reslider.html
http://www.chelonia.org/articles/graptemyscare.htm
http://www.allturtles.com/setup/indoorWT.php
http://www.geocities.com/margareth100.geo/res.html
http://www.turtlepuddle.org/
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com