Turtle Thursday: Roxy needs a new home

Roxy has been with us since the beginning. Stacey bought him as a "replacement" turtle from a pet shop on Myrtle Avenue. He was a hatchling in amongst a tank filled with red eared slider hatchlings. We requested one and the employee grabbed one that he chose and waved a key in front of the animal's face.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"To see if he snaps," was the response. The little guy didn't, so they put him in a box for us to bring home. We thought this turtle might be a female, so we chose the name Roxy, after Roxanne Spalding from Gen13. Yeah, I was a comic book fan. That was some ten years ago.

Over the years we figured out that this turtle was a male, but the name stuck, too bad for the little guy, but he doesn't know any better.

Everything seemed fine until Stacey and I decided to combine our tanks after we were married. Her two big females, Dot and Stripe, and my guy Tiny had distinguished themselves as vicious residents in the tank and had to be given away right away. We thought that our problems with injured turtles had ended when those three had new homes, but it started up again. It didn't take long to figure out that Roxy was trying to establish himself as the dominant male RES in the tank, and was biting everyone else. We isolated Roxy and peace in the tank was restored.

Now we have five large turtles living in perfect harmony in our 125 gallon tank. Roxy resides in the 30 breeder "isolation tank" where he can do no harm. By himself, he's a great pet. He's bright and alert, very healthy, and fairly low maintenance. He just doesn't play well with others.

If you are near Long Island, NY, or know of someone in the area who can provide a good home for a good little guy, please comment to this blog entry. I use comment moderation, so I can see messages and not publish them.