We bought two yellow bellied sliders for our daugthers in March from a local pet shop. Before we bought them we asked the man working there about their care and what sort of set up we would need.

He told us all we needed was the tank with a filter and gravel and a rock for them to lie out on. He sold us these items and sent us home with two baby turtles and a box of pellet type food. After a few days they still were not eating and I was beginning to worry so I did a bit of research online to see what could do to help them.

This is when I found out about needing UVB light and not to use gravel. So we went straight out to buy the lighting and threw away the gravel. We have a few nice round smoothe pebbles on the bottom of the tank now (we got them at the seaside and I boiled them in a big saucepan for a few hours to ensure they were clean and clear of salt water before cooling and putting in the tank).

Once we had the tank set up this way they seemed much happier. They bask then cool off and swim around and even come over to the glass when they hear our voice. So I was happy enough that we were doing everything right.

But we have had them now for almost 9 months and they do not seem to be growing much, they have grown a little, their shells have gotten a bit bigger but really not much. I am starting to worry as I have seen on a few sites they can grow to 4 inch in first year. I do not know how old they are as the man in the pet shop said he wasn't sure when they were born but as we have had them for 9 months surely they should have grown a bit more by now. The shell is about an inch and a half long. When someone says 4 inch do they mean whole body length or shell??

Their tank is about 1 foot wide by 1 and 1/2 foot long and the wafer in the tank is about 10 inch deep. They have a basking rock about 6 inch by 4 inch. There is a filter which keeps the tank nice and clean, we top the water up every week and do a full clean out every month. There is a UVB light which we keep on through daylight hours. We do not have any live plants but I just read they might be a good idea for them to nibble on, so I am gonna get some this weekend. I never had any food in their tank before as we feed them in a seperate bowl.

We feed them prawns or small bits of fish/dried pellet every other day and they also get some lettuce and they love apple. We put some food in their bowl and leave them in the water for 45 min or so and by then they have eaten and also been to the loo. So we put them back into their tank and throw awy the leftover food.

The seem happy and swim and bask. They have come to know us and come to the glass when we enter the room, we keep them in the living room and they seem to like this as a while back we moved them to my daugthers bedroom but they just moped about in there and never swam or really did anything. So we moved them back out to the living room and they are back to normal, they must have missed hearing us all living our lives around them as my daugther spends little time in her room they wont have seen much activity. They know when its feeding time and when they are in there feeding bowl they like to poke their heads out of the water and watch us if we are near. They also enjoy getting out for a ealk around the tils on the floor a few times a week, we would sit in a circle round them so they can't get inder the sofa etc and they wander around from one of us to the other. Other than lifting themout and into their tank we do not handle them often as I am unsure if they would like it or not. Even when they are out for their walk around we just watch them but do not touch.

Anyway I wanted to explain exactly how we care for them so any one who is an expert can advice me. I worry they should be growing alot more, are we doing something wrong??? The pet shop we got them from had no UVB bulb and no filter and had about 20 in one tank just anout 3 feet long and 1 foot wide with just a few inch of water. I read somewhere if they are not cared for well in the early weeks they may not ever grow right and might not live as oong as they should. I want to do all I can to keep them fit and happy please advice me.

Thanks