Hi,
I am just finishing up my pond build, and I was looking into getting a turtle (red slider or similiar). I live in Las Vegas, NV so the temp never gets below freezing in the winter. Still I have done some reading and it seems that it is unhealthy for the turtle to stay outside during the winter when it gets into the high30's/low40's. I was wondering if, instead of bringing the turtle inside, can't I just buy some sort of underwater heater to keep the water at 70+ degree's during winter months? The pond is small (5' x 5') and about 20 inches deep, so I don't think keeping it heated would be much of a problem. I can't seem to find any articles explaining if this is a good idea though....anyone ever tried this method?

you do not need a heater. they will simply stop eating and all of their metabolic processes will slow down below about 50F. res especially can tolerate cold. in general as long as a pond doesnt freeze solid and there is a vent hole maintained everything should be fine.

Thanks reptile guy,
Is it a safe assumption that the turtle shouldn't be a baby to withstand the winter? I was guessing I should be looking for a 4 to 5 incher at least. Oh, and while I have an expert on the line...lemme ask you this too....I have read that the turtle will most likely try to run away (even if he is a water turtle?) so I should either fence in the pond, or make it impossible for him to get out of the pond (only create islands for him to sun-bathe on). Does that sound correct?
Also, in general, turtles and fish don't get along, and the turtles will get mad at the fish and try to eat them, right? Just wondering if I can have say...2 koi and 2 turtles in the same pond. (pond is kind of small, so Im thinking the animals may have to get along, or they'l go nuts and fight eachother to the death).
EDIT: oh, and just to be sure....koi fish have no problems with winter right?

heads up: a couple people on here are very strongly opinionated that koi should go in no smaller than a 1000 gallon pond. due to there max size of 2-3' depending on type of koi that is a good minimum. if you pond is any smaller i would go with goldfish. shubunkins and sarassas are fancier goldfish that are much more beautiful than feeder goldfish. they are still fast enough to avoid turtles for the most part. adult res eat a lot of vegetation so plants in the pond probably wont last long. turtles dont get mad at the fish, they just see free food swimming by and go for it. res are probably better especially if they are well fed. i feed lots of pellets to my turtles and they dont put much effort into going for fish. i would go with larger turtles so that they do have a good start before the strain of winter. 4-5" is a good size, especially since no one is supposed to sell turtles under 4" in the U.S. as pets anyways. fence is a good idea. no way out except for basking area in the middle of pond isnt as easy and they still may find a way out, trust me. i gave my 2 res to my sister. she has a small pond and i helped install a fence. i just used 25' of 24" wide hardware cloth. that way you can just step over it and there is no gate for little kids to open or leave open. i buried it about 4-6" so they couldnt burrow under the fence either. we used 1.5"x1.5"x~24" posts cut from an 8' section of post. this gave support to the fence where we couldnt nail it to the arbor the pond was under. we didnt cement them in just buried them nice and deep(~8") and they didnt always reach the top of the fence. she hasnt had any problems so far that i know of. the fence cost about $20 total. we used double nails that look like a giant staples that you have to hammer in. if any of this is confusing ask about it and i will clarify. so dont use the koi, get 4-5" turtles, and use a fence as opposed to islands.

Thanks again for the info,
Since my pond is in a small'ish yard it is kind of the 'main attraction' so to speak. Putting a fence around it will destroy the look I am going for, so I may decide to not get a turtle after all. I just did some looking on 'shubunkins' and WOW, they are cool looking and don't mind at all cold water. One website called them the 'poor mans koi'. I think I will look into getting them...thanks for the heads up....my pond is only about 300+ gallons, so I guess koi is out(even though my pet store here sells them small, I guess it's still no good cause they would outgrow the pond).
It's kind of funny that a water turtle would run away and die, rather than stay where he knows there is water and food. oh well.
Thanks again.

See my page on turtle ponds at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/turpond.htm and my page on winterizing ponds at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/winter.htm

If you want turtles, you pretty much have to fence in the pond to be sure they don't run away. They can overwinter where you live as long as they are temperate (not tropical) turtles such as red-eared sliders or Western painted turtles.

I suggest you build the pond as large as you can (as far as space and money goes). That way, you can add more and larger animals. Koi can grow to 3' long but most grow to a few feet. My koi are 7-years-old and about 18" long. Shubunkins are very pretty goldfish.

Heating an entire pond can be done but it is VERY expensive. The heat, if uneven, can be detrimental to turtles and fish, if say there's one really hot spot, and the rest is bitter cold. Even heating is usually done with coils of running water under the pond. The coil water is pumped into the house and heated by gas heat. Such systems run in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Turtles may nip at fish or eat smaller fish. How often they do this depends on the species and the size of the turtles, the size of the fish, and the size of the pond as well as what else the turtles might be offered to eat, and even their individual personalities.

Hatchling turtles are more vulnerable so I would suggest overwintering turtles under 4" inside. It is illegal to sell turtles that small but they still do.

Enjoy your new pond, whatever you decide to do!

Thanks for the info, and great reading.
I pretty much have decided to just get a couple shubunkins because of my small pond and unwillingness to build a fence. I think the shubunkins will be fine during the winter in my zone. Oh well...maybe after a while I'l break down and build a fence, but for now the pond is pretty much centered on looking good in my yard. Thanks for the help.
-mike
On a side note...are their any other animals that I can add for fun? I.E. frogs, salamanders etc.? I'm guessing no, but figured I may as well ask.

with my turtle experience... turtles have expensive tastes and will eat expensive fish and leave the "8 for a dollar" fish alone if they have the choice.

my turtles overwinter in the pond, i live in southeast texas, they are native here and it does get cold down here sometimes, some nights below freezing but not often, during the last winter, i went a week or 2 or even more at a time without seeing my turtle, he stayed in the water and dug himself in the debris (leaves and stuff) most of the time.

other animals probably arent a good idea. turtles by nature have a way of eating frogs and its not pleasent, they rip the legs off and rip the stomach open and eat them basically alive.

you can put koi with them for now, but be prepared to make another pond when they outgrow it, i wouldnt trust my turtles with koi, just because i dont want them to eat or nip them.

my turtles can be in the pond with fish and ignore them for days, but some days you can put some fish in their and they will attack them like sharks.


i probably give my turtles more credit than most for personality, but yes they will "run away" i dont really like the run away term, its more like they get out of their pond and go exploring and get lost or cant get back in, i dont think they want to get out.... why would they, they got free food :)

most animals do explore every nook and cranny of a new enclosure, so if there are no limits, they will keep exploring like jarrodrossi said. if you dont have turtles in the pond, frogs and maybe even newts will probably find it, so you wouldnt need to add them, that may actually be worse by possibly mixing genetics to a new gene pool, introducing disease to the native animals, things like that. when i finished the pond fence it looked fine to me, but i probably have a higher tolerance for the unnatural, at least in this case. it is shiny metal sticking up about 2 feet out of the ground all around the pond. however there are plants you could plant along the fence that within a year or two would cover it. so it depends on how bad you want the turtles.

My site has information on all sorts of other animals besides fish and turtles that you can add to your pond but many will find their way to the pond naturally.

Well, nothing remotely aquatic lives here naturally (las vegas, NV = middle of dessert). I will look deeper into newts and/or salamanders...make sure they get along with the type of fish I'm going with and can live through the winter.
Thanks for the info.
-mike