Baby RES

Question
I have a baby RES, probably about 1 to 1-1/2 inches big. I have him/her in a decent size aquarium(10 gallons) and the temperature of the water ranges from 80 - 72 degrees(day/night). He has a good basking spot, although he generally stays in the water most of time. As far as, filtration goes I have a 30 gallon filter, but I can't have it running a lot since its so small the filter seems to not let him swim. I use a separate container for feeding, using the same water from the tank so he/she is not shocked. I try to feed him the pellets, but he seems to smell them and then ignore them. I tried soaking them in tuna water but they are still ignored. It does eat crickets, worms, and shrimp. I put a little bit of lettuce and carrots every once in awhile, which he does eat as well. But I can't get him to eat the pellets, and to be honest, I can't run to the petstore everyday to buy live food. I haven't tried a different brand of pellets yet because I don't know if its just rejecting the pellets in general or if its that certain brand(Wardley). Anyways, is there anything I can do to try to get him/her eating the pellets? Thanks!

Answer
Try a different brand. The most widely recommended brands are Reptomin and Mazuri,  but there are other good ones as well. You may also need a smaller-sized food for right now.

For baby turtles, forget the lettuce and other plant foods until it hits about 4" long- usually after breeding age is over for most of them in the wild.

Your tank is a bit small- but will be OK for a while longer. The filter is OK- you may need to try a baffle or something to make the water flow more gently, but leave it on all the time or the biological part fo the filter- the most important part- will not work correctly.

A couple of good sites to look over would be http://www.austinsturtlepage.com and http://www.redearslider.com