Tips on breeding Florida Redbelly Turtle?

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Dauðarós

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 15, 2007
11
0
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Iceland
I have a couple of Florida Redbelly Turtle, a male and a female, in a 216L tank (about 57 US gallon) along with an unknown cooter. I was hoping to get them to breed, they are about four and a half years old now and i have newer seen them attempting to mate
3q7qc8fu_P3010079.JPG

here´s a picture of the couple (the one underwater is the uknown cooter)

So if anyone has a clue how to help with the breeding process, please let me know.
 
I´m pretty new to keeping turtles. The water temperature is about 27° C and I have no idiea about the basking temperature, I have a normal desklamp shining there (see pic) plus a UVB fluorscent lamp ofer the whole tank. I know it´s not the biggest tank for them but they seem to be doing fine so far. But again, if anyone has any exp. of breeding them, any tips would be great :)

8vtnodav_P3010106.JPG

Here´s a pic showing a part of the tank, including the basking spot, with the unknown cooter basking. The UVB lamp is mounted on the wall over the tank (doesn´t show on pic)
 
I've bred painted turtles before, but that was done outdoors. I guess you can't really take that approach in Iceland. I would attach a large rubbermaid tub full of a mixture of sterile sand and vermiculite. Have a basking light above it so it's pretty warm to the touch. Place a thermometer into the center and the temperature should be around 78-80˚ degrees F. Your female will dig many test holes and hopefully she finds one she likes and lays her eggs in it. You'll want to then remove them carefully and place them in an incubator with a temperature between 82-85˚ degrees F. They take about 80 to 120 days to hatch. Cooler temps make females and warm make males.
 
Surprised they haven't bred already. Big basking types like cooters/sliders/redbellies tend to be, well, horny. I also wouldn't be shocked to see the cooter involved in this; they're not picky. Agreed with vicious re: the nesting box. Some things you could try to stimulate breeding are getting them some natural sunlight (once it gets warmer up there obviously), and gradually upping the light cycle from 12 on/12 off to something like 14/10.
 
Thanks for the replys :) Any tips and/or pics how to make a "large rubbermaid tub" ? And about getting them real sunlight.... I don´t think thats going to happen anytime soon. It doesn´t get really warm up here, max 20°-25° C (I think 68-77 farenheit):irked:
 
You basically get a large tub fill it with sand and vermiculite and make a ramp to it like you did in your basking area. I think someone on here is breeding Asian Box Turtles that way.
 
You need to be very pacient when it comes to turtle breding. Your animals are still very young, specialy your two females. What I sugest is that you put your females in there own bigger tank which must have a proper egg laying area and let them grow a few more years. whait until they have laid theirs first unfertilazed eggs(this will prevent your females from producing eggs too young and will allow them to gain experience in the egg laing process withaut them having to cope with the male constantly tring to mate). If they are sucessfull in laing there first clunch of eggs, then , next year by early spring you can put togeder male and female, and hope they mate. By the way , you need to simulate te Florida winter to stimulate breding. Has you can see it can take many years until you have some consistent results. Until then I sugest that you learn the most you can about stuff like incubating reptile eggs, hibernation, the species native habitat,etc. Good luck:)
 
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