What size tank do you have them in? And are they male or female or one of each? (You can easily tell by looking at the nails on their front feet....males have really long nails...like 1" long....females have little stubby nails.)


My sister had two male red ears that grew up in a shared tank for years. (They started out as little quarter-sized as well....didn't know she'd gotten two males until they were older.) They would flutter their claws along the sides of the face of the other turtle. I don't know why they did this...and I didn't know them well enough to know if it was only one turtle that did it to the other, or if they both did it. It could be a dominance behavior.

I don't know anything about tank filters, so I can't help ya there...but one of the things my sister started doing to help keep the water clean and prolong the life of her filters was to feed the turtles in a separate tub. Every other day, she'd pull them out of their tank and put them into a large plastic tub with a couple inches of water in it, then put their food in there. They'd stay in there until they were done eating.

She still has one of the turtles, and continues this routine to this day. Very healthy, thriving turtle.