Y'all probably remember Turtle Talk. The one about my itty bitty turtle, Sven? Well...He isn't exactly so itty bitty any more...
Last October, I moved him out of the little, rectangular, not-even-half-a-gallon tank I'd bought him in and into a circular one-gallon tank my grandparents had given me for my birthday. He had been set up in my windowsill, but with the newer and bigger tank, I had to move him down onto my shelf and add a light so he could still sun. I'd been piling up some rocks for him to sit on, but he quickly got too big for that, too.
So, I went to PetSmart and bought a big rock thing that he could sit on and sun, but also swim under. It was pretty cool. That lasted a little over a year before he got too big for it, too.
So, in January I went back to PetSmart and purchased a ten-gallon tank. And along with it I snagged a newer, better light, a suitable filter, a fish bubbler (which I only recently got a pump for, kudos to my mom for buying the wrong thing when she was doing me a favor lol), and a little floating platform that he could sit on to sun. I put the rock he'd had in is old one in the bottom of the new one. (He's flipped that thing over and is now using it as a "nest" or "bed" so I've given up on putting it in right-side-up.)
Since then, I've been making some improvements. Along with the addition of the bubbler pump, I bought some little rocks to put in the bottom of the tank. That didn't work out well because he started eating them (I guess they looked appetizing) so I cleaned them out and bought some much bigger ones that he couldn''t fit in his throat.
I guess now I have to hope he doesn't turn out like Tiny Tim in that one song..."I got a brand new turtle; his name is Tiny Tim. I put him in the bathtub to see if he could swim. He drank up all the water, he ate up all the soap. He tried to eat the bathtub but it wouldn't go down his throat."
Haha! Anyways, I had to go back a few months ago and buy a bigger and sturdier dock for him to sit on. He'd grown so much that the other one kept sinking below him!
When I say he's grown, I mean he's GROWN. He used to be not even two inches long, and now he's the size of my hand! He's gotten pretty heavy, too, but that's mostly shell.
There's one little teeny tiny detail I need to say about Sven the turtle...I never actually knew whether he was a boy or a girl, so I looked up how to sex a turtle. (I'd done this before with a friend of mine when we were trying to figure out what gender Baylie the duck was. She was a girl.) And, as it turns out...Sven is a girl.
I've had him (her) for about two years, and I've been calling Sven a him since I bought him (her), so it's become a habbit to to say "him" and "he" and "his" and whatnot. I quickly gave up on trying to call him a her because it's just too difficult. I'd rather just leave it The way it is.
That's my little girl Sven, and he's the greatest turtle ever!
Hannah Haugen
The Daily Blahgger
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| Some of you have seen this picture before. This is Sven in the little tank that I first bought him in. (There's also another picture of Sven so small right there. <<< I'm leaving that one up because, honestly, he was cuter then. XD) |
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| Before I took him out of the round tank and put him in the other |
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| Just look at that smile! XD |
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| My little guy swimming about in his new tank back in January |
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