How Long Do Pet Turtles Live ?

Getting a new pet basically means that you will get a new friend that will always be in your life for a long period of time, but it also means that you will get a new responsibility for life. So before getting yourself any kind of pet it’s important to know how much they will live. To help you figure out if you should get a pet turtle, I wrote this article that will tell you everything that you have to know about how much pet turtles live.

How long do pet turtles live? Most pet turtles live up to 30 or 40 years. The amount of time that pet turtles will live is drastically influenced by the turtle’s species, and how you take care of it.

Here is a list of the most common pet turtle species and how much they live:

Red Eared Slider turtle: 30 years
Painted turtle: 20 years
Box turtle: 20 years
Mud turtle: 15 years
Map turtle: 30 years
Wood turtle: 50 years
Musk turtle: 40 years

So the amount of time that your turtle will live is greatly influenced by its species. There is nothing that you can do to change its species. But if you want your turtle to live longer there is something that you can do. And that is to take better care of it. Here is what you can do to take better care of your pet turtle.

A Good Diet

A good and balanced diet is one of the most important things for a longer lifespan. And it’s up to you to make sure that your turtle eats everything that it needs.

Most pet turtles are omnivorous, which means that they will eat fruits, vegetables, and meat. So a well-balanced diet will include all of them, and some food pellets as well.

If you present a turtle with 3 piles of food, one containing only meat, another only with fruits, and the last one with only vegetables, the turtle will always choose the one with the meat. Turtles will always prefer meat over anything else. But eating only meat is not recommended for them. Meat contains a lot of protein, and if turtles eat too much protein they will end up with health problems.

As a meat source for your turtle, you can also use feeder fish and dried insects. They usually represent one of the main meat sources for turtles when they are in the wild, so they are perfect food for pet turtles as well.

An ideal diet for a pet turtle will contain a mix of:

Pellets
Meat
Fish
Dried insects
Vegetables
Fruits
Aquatic plants

Turtles can eat almost anything, but there are a few food items that you have to avoid.

Food Items That You Should Avoid

Spinach. Spinach inhibits calcium absorption which is very important for turtles, especially when they are young.

Foods with a high amount of oxalic acid. Oxalic acid is a very toxic acid in high concentrations. It can be found in a lot of foods that we eat daily, but these doses are really small. A dangerous amount for humans starts from 15 grams, but for turtles, the amount is a lot smaller. Here is a list of common plants and vegetables that contain a high amount of oxalic acid that should be avoided ( the amount of oxalic acid is per 100g of the respective plant or vegetable ) :

Chives – 1.48 g
Parsley – 1.70 g
Spinach – 1.30 g
String Beans – 1. 35 g
Blackberries – 1.45 g
Avocado – 1.60 g
Amaranth – 1.09 g
Cassava – 1.26 g
Purslane – 1.31 g

Nuts. Nuts also contain high doses of oxalic acid, the amount will differ from nut to nut but all of them contain doses that are too high. Nuts also contain too much protein per gram. Turtles need protein but too much of it can also be bad.

Goldfishes. There are multiple reasons why goldfishes are not good for turtles, one of them is the fact that they contain too much fat which can be bad for turtles, and they also contain thiaminase, which is known to cause neurological problems.

A Proper Tank

If you want your turtle to live a long and pleasant life then you should definitely make sure that you have a proper tank.

A proper tank doesn’t mean that you need anything special. The only thing that makes a tank good for a pet turtle it’s the size.

Most people that buy turtle will usually buy a juvenile one that is usually 4 to 5 inches in length. And as a result, they will buy a 30-gallon tank. And that is perfectly fine for a small turtle. But in just a couple of years, that same turtle will probably be 7 or 8 inches, and at that point, you will need a much bigger tank.

If a turtle doesn’t have a tank that is big enough it won’t be able to move around too much, and the water will get dirty very fast. All of those things will eventually lead to health problems that will shorten your turtle’s lifespan.

So if you notice that the tank is getting too small for your turtle, you should definitely change it with a bigger one.

A Proper Basking Area

When turtles bask they are exposing themselves to a lot of heat and UVB rays. The heat helps the turtle maintain a good body temperature. Since turtles are cold-blooded animals, they are unable to generate body heat, so they rely on the temperature of the surrounding area to warm themselves. If turtles don’t have access to a proper basking temperature they will most probably catch a cold, which can be very dangerous for turtles.

UVB light is a light spectrum of UV light that plays a very important role in the life of most turtles. UVB light plays a vital role in the production of Vitamin D3 which is essential for the calcium in the body. Without UVB light the turtles won’t be able to get the proper amount of calcium which can lead to improper bone growth, metabolic bone disease, softshell, shell rot, and many other bad things.

If you want to know more about how to properly light and heat a basking area you should check out this article: Guide for Lighting and Heating a Turtle Tank and Basking Area.

Cleaning the Tank

Turtles produce a lot of mess in a very short period of time. A tank can easily go from clean to incredibly dirty in just 2 weeks.

All the dirty water from the tank can have very bad effects on the turtles. So it’s important to clean the tank at least once every week.

If your tank gets very dirty in just 2 or 3 days then it probably means that you need a bigger tank or a new water filter. It’s important to know that when you get a water filter for a turtle tank, the power of the filter should be double the volume of the tank. This means that if you have a 40-gallon tank, you should get a filter that is recommended for 80 gallon or bigger tanks.

I know from years of experience, that cleaning the tank is not the most interesting thing, and that it’s easy to say that you will do it later and forget about it. But if you want your turtle to live a long life it’s important to clean the tank as often as needed.

Cleaning Your Turtle

Even if you clean the tank every week, some algae and other things will get stuck to your turtle’s shells, it’s inevitable. So it’s also important to clean your turtle as well, not just the tank.

If you are not exactly sure how to properly clean your turtle then you should check out this article: Do Turtles Smell? In this article, you will find a guide that tells you how to properly clean a turtle and one that teaches you how to clean the tank.

Keep Predators Away

If there is something that can shorten the life of a turtle, then that is a predator. Predators aren’t always wild bears, hawks, tigers, wolves, or foxes. A predator can also be your cat or your dog. You never know when one of your other pets might take an interest in your turtle and try to eat it.

So if you have other pets besides your turtle, you have to be very careful when they are around each other. If one of them shows signs that they are not comfortable then you should try to keep them away from each other.

Even if they don’t show signs of hostility, the turtle might always bite them by mistake, I know it sounds strange, but turtles can bite things by mistake if they think there is a small chance that it might be food. It’s not uncommon for small turtles to bite each other tails because they think that they are worms or some type of insect.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t keep a turtle with other pets in the same house, it just means that you have to be very careful when they are around each other because things can end badly.

Keeping the Turtle Stress Free

Even if they don’t seem to, turtles are very easily affected by stress. Stress in turtles can manifest in a lot of ways, strange behavior that can sometimes be harmful to them, loss of appetite, physical changes, and sometimes diseases.

It’s easy to find out what can stress a turtle, you just have to think if the same thing happens to you, would you be ok with it or would it stress you. Here are a couple of examples.

Would you like to sit quietly and look through the window, and then suddenly a huge cat comes out of nowhere and starts taping on the window? Probably no, and your turtle wouldn’t like it either. So other animals that invade its tank can definitely be something that will stress you.

Would you get stressed if your neighbors kept playing loud music for 24 hours each day? Probably yes, so the same thing applies to your turtle. Keeping it close to the speakers and constantly playing music can definitely stress out your turtle.

I think you get the idea, those aren’t things that will only stress turtles. Those are things that will stress out anybody. So it should be easy to figure out if something is stressing out your turtle.

Occasional Visits to the Vet

This is something that you should do with all pets, not only with turtles. Even if everything seems completely fine, you should occasionally go to the vet for a checkup. Going at least twice a year should be more than enough if your turtle is healthy.

A vet can always tell you if something is wrong with your turtle, even if there are no easy observable signs. And even if your turtle is healthy, the vet can always give you a couple of ideas on what you can do to improve the health of your turtle.

And the best thing about going to the vet with a turtle is that you don’t have to worry that your turtle will try to run away because it doesn’t like to go there.