Turtle Help

[Vermundor]

About 8 years ago my aunt's friend tried to throw a baby turtle away in the trash. (Nuts right?) She saved it, but from what I've seen, his cage conditions right now aren't good. The lil' guy went from about an inch in shell diameter to about roughly 4-5". He's kept in a pretty tall/large cage thats filled with about 3-4" of dirty water with a few fish decor rocks on the bottom. That's it. I have no idea what he's being fed. From what I've seen, he doesn't have any diseases or any weight problems, although I don't know much about turtles. My aunt's not really sure what breed he is, but I believe him to be a red eared slider. She offered to give him to me, but my parents aren't caving in since the turtle doesn't look "that bad". I'm working on getting my aunt's oldest son to take care of the turtle properly, so I'm planning to get supplies for the turtle as a gift for my cousin.

*We have no idea wether its male or female.

Any info on red eared slider care would be great!

 

[turtlepunk]

if it has a red stripe across both sides of his face then yes, it may be a red eared slider.
with turtle tanks its a MUST to have a powerful submersible or canister filter. EVEN with a filter, 50-75% of the water MUST be changed out weekly/bi-weekly.
turtles are VERY messy.
It is important for the water to be warmed to around 80 degrees. Turtles MUST also have a DRY basking platform to climb on to dry out. (without it many disorders will arise)
above their basking platform there MUST be a heat bulb AND uvb rays. without the uvb bulb they are very susceptible to MBD and other problems.
These are the very BASICS of keeping aquatic turtles.

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its is difficult to tell the sex of younger turtles, but when they're a little older males have some physical differences than females.
1. males have much longer front claws.
2. males tails are much shorter than females.
Also sliders are awesome swimmers so it wouldn't hurt to raise the water level to around 6 inches or so.

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Here is a link to a pretty good care sheet =)

http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/caresheet-red_ear_slider.htm

 

[Rhetoric]

tortoiseforum.org might have some res savvy people as well.

 

[Vermundor]

I've been reading around and their husbandry is pretty difficult. I'd prefer to either take the turtle or give him away to a better owner, but I'm not comfortable with selling him locally and I'm pretty sure you can't ship them. I'm buying some things for the turtle in the following days, so any info on turtle products would really help.

 

[Neeko]

You can ship turtles. They come in rasberry plastic containers. I believe that the water should be as high as the turtle is long and 10 gallons of water for every inch of shell.