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Posted by MikeST on January 20, 2003 at 08:25:51:
In Reply to: Re: Growth rate of alligator snapping Turtles...? posted by phantoms on January 20, 2003 at 01:30:05:
:i got my ally when he was the size of a 50 cent piece. in a yr he was about 4 inches in shell length. at 2 yrs he was approaching 8 inches.....haven't measured him real recently but i will have had him 3 yrs in march and he is around 10 inches or so. the first yr or so he was in my room so the water temp was in the low 80s all the time..i think he grew fast because of the warm water speeding up his metabolism or something. hes in the basement now and the water temp is cooler....low to mid 70s i guess.
I totally agree. It has a lot to do with finding the perfect balance of temp and feeding.
I raised exotic fish for years and it was similar. High temps and tons of live food combined with daily water changes , can make a fish grow almost twice as fast as you would think.
I find my alligator snappers do well in 80 degrees. I usually offer food every couple of days, but if they're being a little picky, I might hold back a little till they've finished off all the fish in the tank and are readily going after pellets.
Remeber a turtle in the wild will not always find plentiful food sources on a daily basis.
I don't see any advantage to raising metabolism and forcing growth.
These bet is to always try to duplicate the environment the animal will encounter in the wild.
