Razorback Musk Turtles

Paschendale52

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I've been reading through wand watching @Moozillion's posts about Jacques and it made me realize that I never actually posted about my musk turtles.

I built a 2'x4'x2' tall tank and stand around August of 2016 shown here. The tank picture is from today, I couldn't find one of the empty tank. It was basically the same process as my previous plywood tank.
DSC_3059.JPG 20180208_074316.jpg

In October or so I purchased 3 razorback musk turtles from Underground reptiles. They don't have a spectacular reputation, but it is who I purchased my Southern Painted Turtles from and they have never had any health problems and arrived safely and timely.

When they arrived there were very shy and about the size of a quarter.

DSC_3319.JPG DSC_3321.JPG DSC_3329.JPG DSC_3335.JPG

They were in about about ~4" of water with a basking area and a tank that kept guppies and a bristlenose pleco, which they never bothered. Every now and again they would chase the guppies, but gave up after a couple minutes. After about 6 months they started to come out of hiding regularly and would investigate most times I came to the window. If I ever changed the aquarium decorations (they always had big logs and rocks to hide under) I usually wouldn't see them for about two days while they hid. This also happened when I changed the water.

The tank has 3 bulkheads installed about 4" off the ground for filter intake/outtake and one for draining/filling. One day I was changing the style of the filter intake, which consists of PVC with various holes cut in it and left the intake cover off overnight since I had to run to Home Depot to get a new part for it in the morning. I put my hand up to the intake and it didn't feel very strong so I figured it would be ok. Sadly, this was an incorrect assumption, and when I checked on them in the morning, one of the ~6 month old turtles had gotten stuck at the intake and drowned. I was very upset with myself and took the other two out of the tank and put them in tupperware containers while I buried him and ran to the store to make a new filter intake cover.

Since then their tank has undergone several landscape changes and they have been what appears to be happy and health turtles. I learned last night that at least one of them is a male. I was watching him hang out on top of a stick, under a piece of a back and he started fanning his penis. If I hadn't seen my box turtle this years ago I would have been very concerned, but I just said "huh, well I guess we know this one is a male now....." I didn't realize they would do that until they were older since my understanding is you can't sex these guys until they are a couple years old. They are ~1.5 years now.

They also have some new company in the tank. I recently put a blue gourami in the tank and two ~3" crawfish. The turtles chased the gourami for the first day, but realized they weren't going to catch him, so he ignores them mostly now. The crawfish got a little careless one day and tried to get in on the turtles feeding time for the fresh food. I watched them for a while when I first put them in and they didn't seem to fuss, but the other morning one crawfish was where he usually is, hiding under a log, and all I could find of the other was an empty shell. Either he molted and it really good at hiding, or the turtles had a midnight snack. Anyway, thats probably enough of a wall of text. Heres some more recent pictures. : )20180207_085314.jpg 20180207_085324.jpg 20180208_074316.jpg 20180208_074329.jpg 20180208_074354.jpg
this last picture is the crawfish that hides most of the day. He'll come out for food.
 

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Yvonne G

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These guys remind me of little snappers. I love their faces. I used to have a plain old mud turtle that someone turned in. She lived in a 10 gallon tank in the house, but every so often I would put her out in the box turtle yard, and one day she actually laid eggs out there. I put the eggs in a shoe box on a closet shelf and promptly forgot about them. Many months later (can't remember, but longer than 3) I remembered them and dug them out. One baby was still alive, the other three had shriveled up and dried out. Cutest little baby you ever saw. After that I felt I didn't deserve to have water turtles so I adopted them out.
 

Moozillion

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Louisiana, USA
I've been reading through wand watching @Moozillion's posts about Jacques and it made me realize that I never actually posted about my musk turtles.

I built a 2'x4'x2' tall tank and stand around August of 2016 shown here. The tank picture is from today, I couldn't find one of the empty tank. It was basically the same process as my previous plywood tank.
View attachment 229724 View attachment 229720

In October or so I purchased 3 razorback musk turtles from Underground reptiles. They don't have a spectacular reputation, but it is who I purchased my Southern Painted Turtles from and they have never had any health problems and arrived safely and timely.

When they arrived there were very shy and about the size of a quarter.

View attachment 229726 View attachment 229727 View attachment 229728 View attachment 229729

They were in about about ~4" of water with a basking area and a tank that kept guppies and a bristlenose pleco, which they never bothered. Every now and again they would chase the guppies, but gave up after a couple minutes. After about 6 months they started to come out of hiding regularly and would investigate most times I came to the window. If I ever changed the aquarium decorations (they always had big logs and rocks to hide under) I usually wouldn't see them for about two days while they hid. This also happened when I changed the water.

The tank has 3 bulkheads installed about 4" off the ground for filter intake/outtake and one for draining/filling. One day I was changing the style of the filter intake, which consists of PVC with various holes cut in it and left the intake cover off overnight since I had to run to Home Depot to get a new part for it in the morning. I put my hand up to the intake and it didn't feel very strong so I figured it would be ok. Sadly, this was an incorrect assumption, and when I checked on them in the morning, one of the ~6 month old turtles had gotten stuck at the intake and drowned. I was very upset with myself and took the other two out of the tank and put them in tupperware containers while I buried him and ran to the store to make a new filter intake cover.

Since then their tank has undergone several landscape changes and they have been what appears to be happy and health turtles. I learned last night that at least one of them is a male. I was watching him hang out on top of a stick, under a piece of a back and he started fanning his penis. If I hadn't seen my box turtle this years ago I would have been very concerned, but I just said "huh, well I guess we know this one is a male now....." I didn't realize they would do that until they were older since my understanding is you can't sex these guys until they are a couple years old. They are ~1.5 years now.

They also have some new company in the tank. I recently put a blue gourami in the tank and two ~3" crawfish. The turtles chased the gourami for the first day, but realized they weren't going to catch him, so he ignores them mostly now. The crawfish got a little careless one day and tried to get in on the turtles feeding time for the fresh food. I watched them for a while when I first put them in and they didn't seem to fuss, but the other morning one crawfish was where he usually is, hiding under a log, and all I could find of the other was an empty shell. Either he molted and it really good at hiding, or the turtles had a midnight snack. Anyway, thats probably enough of a wall of text. Heres some more recent pictures. : )View attachment 229718 View attachment 229719 View attachment 229720 View attachment 229721 View attachment 229722
this last picture is the crawfish that hides most of the day. He'll come out for food.

Thank you so much for posting!!!![emoji2]
Your turtles are adorable!!!![emoji173]️
I thought seriously about getting a Razorback musk, but Jacques came along first and I’m crazy about her!!!
So sorry for the one you lost. [emoji173]️
It’s fascinating to me how different their personalities are! [emoji2]
I think it’s good for the turtles to have the stimulation of other things in the tank with them. I enjoy watching the ghost shrimp, but Jacques is not very good at all at catching them! [emoji12]
 

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