When I retire in 2-3 years, and am home more, I would like to get an aquatic or semi-aquatic turtle to keep in a large aquarium/paludarium inside. I am very familiar with the care and maintenance of freshwater aquariums: my family had them when I was a child and I helped my father with the siphoning, cleaning etc. As an adult I have kept several freshwater aquariums, the largest being a 70-Tall.
I live in south Louisiana which allows me to have Spotted Turtles since they are not native to our area. If I understand correctly, they need slightly cooler temps than we have here. That's no issue except once every 3-5 years our area will get a hurricane and lose power for a few days. During that time, we obviously have no air conditioning, and the air temp is very likely to be in the high 90s with equally high humidity. The longest we were out of power was 5 days due to Hurricane Katrina, so I figure we would never be out of power longer than that.
So my question is, just how stressed do you think a Spotted Turtle would be in unexpected high heat and humidity for several days? Would that likely make it sick?
My heart is not absolutely SET on a Spotted: I'm also considering native turtles like Razorback Musk or Striped Mud. (No laws governing their keeping here.)
I live in south Louisiana which allows me to have Spotted Turtles since they are not native to our area. If I understand correctly, they need slightly cooler temps than we have here. That's no issue except once every 3-5 years our area will get a hurricane and lose power for a few days. During that time, we obviously have no air conditioning, and the air temp is very likely to be in the high 90s with equally high humidity. The longest we were out of power was 5 days due to Hurricane Katrina, so I figure we would never be out of power longer than that.
So my question is, just how stressed do you think a Spotted Turtle would be in unexpected high heat and humidity for several days? Would that likely make it sick?
My heart is not absolutely SET on a Spotted: I'm also considering native turtles like Razorback Musk or Striped Mud. (No laws governing their keeping here.)