The pink belly side neck turtle is a new addition to other reptiles people like taking care of as pets. These sweet, gentle, and friendly turtles have made it to many people’s list of reptiles to keep as pets.
In this article, we will learn more about the pink belly side neck turtle. This article will guide you through descriptions of this specie of turtle and give you tips on how to take care of them. If you want to learn more about these turtles, read on to the end of the article to find out more about them.
Guide
This guide to the pink belly side neck turtle starts with a description of how or what it looks like, its color, and its appearance. It also gives you an idea of how much this turtle specie can grow over time. You will also learn just how long this turtle lives.
In the next section of this guide, you will learn how to take care of them. You’ll learn things like what to feed them, where to keep them, and what temperature to set for them.
Read on to learn more about the pink belly side neck turtle.
Appearance and Color
The pink belly side neck turtle is known for being colorful. Their shells can be different in color from one another. They are also known for their friendliness.
Compared to other turtles that have just one shell color, this turtle can come with shells in three different colors. Some pink belly side neck turtles have grey shells, others have brown shells, and still, some others have beige-colored shells.
The color of their plastron also varies from one pink belly side neck turtle to another. Before we continue with this, the plastron is the opposite part of the turtle’s carapace or the tougher part of their shell.
It is these different colored plastrons of pink belly side neck turtles that make them popular pets among those who love keeping and caring for turtles and other such reptiles.
The pink belly side neck turtle’s plastron can be pink. It can also be red or very bright orange. These three are the most common colors of plastrons of this turtle species. Meanwhile, the skin of the turtle is usually gray. The skin of the pink belly side neck turtle also has two yellow stripes in them.
Pink-Bellied Side-Neck Turtle Size
The average size of the male pink belly side neck turtle is 5 inches. Females can grow as big as 10 inches. Some females can get bigger over time. The biggest size a female pink belly side neck turtle can get is 16 inches.
Expert Tip: Newly hatched turtles start at 1.25 inches and grow bigger from there. Your baby pink belly side neck turtles can grow bigger over time so you should, perhaps, keep them somewhere they can grow well.
Lifespan
Pink belly side neck turtles can live up to 20 years. Others can live for as long as 30 years in captivity, too. There are rare cases where these turtles can live up to 50 years but it all depends on how one cares for their pet pink belly side neck turtle. You can keep your turtle for 50 years if you take good care of them.
From this part of the article, let’s look into some requirements for taking care of or growing the pink belly side neck turtle in captivity at home.
Tank Size & Dimensions
Turtles are reptiles. They can live both in water and out of it. If you’re taking care of a pink belly side neck turtle as a pet at home, you’ll need to have a place for it to live in. It should be a place, like an aquarium, your turtle can swim in and go ashore as he sees fit.
Pink belly side neck turtles need their own space for swimming, foraging for food, and just basking. You should have a tank in your home that’s spacious enough to allow the turtle to grow and explore and more.
Contrary to popular belief, pink belly side neck turtles are not fussy with the size of aquariums they should be in at home. However, you have to make sure that the tank you have at home is spacious enough for your turtle to move and grow in over time.
A rule of thumb in raising these turtles at home is to have a tank that can hold up to 20 gallons of water and more. This kind of tank would allow the turtle to grow four inches in length.
You need to add 10 more gallons of space to the tank as your turtle grows. Ten gallons free per inch that your pet turtle grows is enough to give space to yours to explore his environment.
If you plan to raise more than one pink belly side neck turtle, you should have more space in the tank you intend to put them in. You can increase the tank size to put them in by 10% per turtle you put in there. Pink belly side neck turtles need a lot of space to grow.
They also need enough space to move around the others in the same tank. Lastly, they need enough space to swim in and forage for their food in, too.
Tank Setup
Pink belly side neck turtles can be housed in tanks with varying depths. They like to spend more time underwater than they like to bask. You can opt for a deep-water tank or a shallow one for your turtle as you see fit. Deeper tanks are easier to clean than shallow ones and the pink belly side neck turtles are great swimmers.
The deeper tanks may be more in your alley for your pet pink belly side neck turtle than shallow tanks.
These turtles rarely bask so for those times that they do so, you can have one part of the tank with shallow water. You can set this shallow part up for the turtle to bask with rocks and perhaps some sand. This can be where the turtle can forage for their food, too.
Expert Tip: Pink belly side neck turtles like to hide in aquatic plants and caves, too. You can put aquatic plants in the tank and store-bought caves to make your turtle comfortable there in his tank.
Temperature & Lighting
Pink belly side neck turtles are native to tropical regions of Australia and Papua New Guinea. They love and are used to humid and hot temperatures. They are also used to having a lot of sunlight where they live.
If you are raising a turtle or two of this kind as a pet in a region of the world where temperatures are colder, you may need an indoor area in your home to raise this one. There are requirements for an indoor dwelling place for pink belly side neck turtles and we’ll talk about that one here.
You can choose to house your pink belly side neck turtle in an outdoor tank or one indoors. Outdoor tanks for the pink belly side neck turtle may need little lighting compared to indoor tanks for them.
Compared to outdoor tanks, you may also need different kinds of temperatures for the indoor tanks that mimic their home back in the tropics.
Food & Diet
Pink belly side neck turtles are carnivorous in their natural habitat. You can feed your turtle in captivity with a similar diet with this knowledge in mind.
Some things you can feed your pet turtle include most crustaceans outside of shrimp, worms, insects, mollusks, and strips of fish. You can also find some turtle pellets just for them in pet stores.
You can raise a pink belly side neck turtle at home. It may seem tricky at first but these friendly and gentle turtles from the tropics make good pets when they are cared for appropriately as mentioned in this article.
