Housing different sized turtles

[Andie]

Hi. I have a longneck turtle which is about 17cm length. He is in a 4x2 tank.

We have been thinking about getting another turtle next breeding season. Could we put a baby (50c piece size) in there or do larger turtles attack smaller ones? Probably want a Krefft or another longneck.

I have seen turtles of different sizes in ponds but maybe the hatchies there are the lucky survivors...

I do have my old 30inch turtle tank still which I can use for a while if they DO fight but I would love to avoid double maintenance.

 

[JAS101]

i wouldnt do it , its not worth the risk . i have herd of large turtles swallowing the heads of baby turtles .
i have seen my 15cm turtle try to eat the head of my 11cm turtle . if u put a new turtle in with your old i think your asking for trouble , but thats just me .
hence why i have 4 ponds for 5 turtles because they just couldnt get along . i have 2 that are fine with each other [ 1 is 10cm other is 11.7cm - 1 is male - other is female]

 

[derekm]

Keep your eyes open and put the word out for one that is similar in size to yours. You might be surprised how quickly you get lucky. At 17cm or thereabouts, quite a few people start thinking about rehoming their turtle because it is outgrowing their standard aquarium and they don't want to build a pond. A keeper in Canberra has quite a few ELNs around this size in a very large display tank, and I think most of them were donations from people that bought hatchies and didn't want to build a pond when they grew up.