Tierra & Viento

Byron's dream came true back in November as we got two water turtles - Tierra & Viento. Byron had spent hours looking on the Internet to find the right kind of filter to purchase, how to set up an aquarium, what size of aquarium would work best, etc. He was so excited to find a used 75 gallon aquarium on KSL classifieds in October. We slowly purchased everything we needed to get the aquarium running. We even got some fish since most aquatic turtles will eat feeder fish as part of their diet.

The aquarium looked so awesome! Now the hard part was finding some turtles that we could put into it. We went to a few pet stores and couldn't find a good selection or any that weren't already huge. Byron was looking at some classifieds when he came across a guy in Layton who had some 3 1/2 month old turtles for sale. We went and purchased 2 of these turtles - they were so small and cute. We named the smallest one that has red next to her face, "Tierra" and the little larger one that has orange and yellow next to his face, "Viento." They were literally the size of a fifty cent coin.

As soon as we put them into their new environment Tierra immediately swam behind a large bush and stayed for pretty much the whole day. Viento didn't seem to have any issues at all as he swam around and tried to see every square inch of his new home. We all got a good laugh seeing him try to eat the small guppies. Of course he wasn't fast enough to get them, but was pretty persistent. We feed them small pellets that Byron began giving hand feeding them. They will come right up to us in the water and grab it out of our hand. It is pretty cool. Once they are ready for some more food they will come back and grab another one out of our hand. They also love to eat dried worms. These are like a treat! Another fun thing to watch them eat is romaine lettuce. We have a rock where they an come out of the water to bask in the heat. We put some of the food on it once in a while. They will never eat on top of this rock, but will immediately dive into the water to eat.

We have enjoyed learning about turtles in observing them. They are pretty entertaining. Every afternoon is when they eat. If I come down to the aquarium when they are ready to eat, they will both dart right in front of me as if to say they are hungry. I think this is so fun to watch and I enjoy telling my children that the turtles are more obedient than they are. They have definitely grown accustomed to us and don't seem scared when we come by them like they did in the beginning. They have grown a little and their coloring on their shell is also changing.
After Byron put the initial water into the tank it took about 24 hours for the filter to get everything looking great. Bradley looking cute.

The dark green plants are the only live plants in our aquarium. Byron knew that the turtles would eat some of the plants so he wanted to provide some for their diet. These plants are supposed to grow back quickly, so we ended up purchasing 3 of them. Little did we know that these darn turtles can devour the entire plant in 24 hours. Pretty soon all we saw left of these plants were a few floating leaves. We decided pretty quickly that it probably isn't worth our time and money to put them into the tank.

The finished product without the turtles.

Here are cute little Tierra & Viento the day we brought them home. They were in a tiny bowl and were so cute and small.

Byron holding up Viento.
After putting the turtles into the tank for the first time - we all sat and watched them for hours.
Byron enjoying his new tank.
The cute turtles.