What turtle to buy

Question
I would like to buy a turtle for my daughter, but not sure which one is a better starter.  I have an outside water garden about 100 gallons, surrounded by about a 10ft x 5ft area of landscape rocks and plants/shrubs.  We live in Georgia so the water warms up nicely.  Is this adequete for a water turtle? What are the safe water temp ranges? As well as outside temps and appropriate hiding?  Are certain plants poisonous?  Or our other option is a 55gal setup inside for a russian box turtle.  Are they easy enough to care for(with our adult help)?  I currently have experience with Leopard geckos and moorish geckos.  I would like a turtle for our daughter on the same level of care.  Thank you for your time.

Answer
The outside space would be wonderful for a Painted Turtle- an easy to care for species that is native there, so will do nicely. They eat mostly insects, small fish, pellets, etc. so there are no real plant concerns.

A 100 gallon pool is great, but can become crowded quickly, so I'd stick with the smaller Painteds instead of their larger cousins, the Sliders. One adult female slider would need more than the 100 gallon pool for space!

The biggest issues would be:
- Good basking site they feel safe using (usually surrounded by water)
- Predator protection- such as raccoons and dogs.


Russian Tortoises are not the easiest of the tortoises, and would do better outside- in fact, the landscaped area around the pool would be great if there was no risk of falling in the pond.

For more info on these and other species, try http://www.tortoisetrust.org and http://www.austinsturtlepage.com