Painted Turtles

By Katherine Gee 722

Observations
Observations-What you notice that makes you want to create an experiment I have a pet turtle named Princess, she is a painted turtle. I normally keep her in a filtered, ten gallon tank. The water is clean and I regulated the temperature at 72 Fahrenheit, she has a basking stone about 5 inches by 5 inches. Princess habitat has an artificial light and it is set to turn on at 7 A.M. and turn off at 8 P.M. so Princess is exposed to thirteen hours of light a day and I feed her feeder fish, chicken, many kinds of larvae, and some kale. For summer, Princess cage was exposed to natural sunlight. I fed her the same foods and gave her the same decorations. After a week, Princess cage was filled with algae. I barely saw Princess; she only came up when I was giving her food. When I took her back home with me, cleaned her tank of algae, and then placed in the artificial lighting. I started thinking, Which water did Princess like more, the clean water or the algae water?

Research
Research-The information that you obtain in order to carry out your experiment A painted turtle is from the genus, Chrysemys and it species is Picta. Its natural habitat is ponds, lakes, marshes, and slow-moving streams and rivers. They prefer shallow water with a muddy bottom along with some aquatic plant life. Painted turtles are omnivores and that means they eat both meat and vegetation. Some examples of food they eat in the wild are fish, insects, crawfish, worms, and plant life. Most people are convinced that Iceberg Lettuce is the food to feed turtles, but studies show that this is one of the worst foods to feed your turtle. The lettuce is basically just water holding no nutrients, and it is highly addictive to turtles. Painted turtles prefer eating their food in water, and will bask sometimes on land. Some diseases painted turtles can receive are Metabolic Bone Disease, or Soft Shell Syndrome. This happens when the turtles do not receive enough calcium. Another turtle disease is shell rot. This happens when a painted turtle is not able to dry off its shell. One way to cure shell rot is to clean the tank and turtles shell. Overall, prevention of these diseases is the key.

Hypothesis
Hypothesis-An educated guess based on prior knowledge. If a painted turtle lives in algae water instead of filtered water, then it will be happier and grow more.

Experiment
Controlled Experiment-An experiment with one variable, which has every other possible variable constant; this hind of experiment has two groups, the control group and experimental group. Independent Variable-A variable that does not rely on anything else to happen Dependent Variable-A variable that relies on the independent variable and you can usually measure it Controlled Variable(Constant)-A variable that does not change throughout the entire experiment Experimental Group-The group that receives the experiment, the independent variable Control Group-The group where all factors are constant. For my experiment the independent variable will be the clean and filtered water, versus the algae filled water. The control group will be the group of turtles in clean water, and my experimental group will be turtles in the algae water. The dependent variables will be the turtles growth and

activeness. The controlled variables will be turtle age, turtle food, tank size, the food, lighting, basking stone, gender, and temperature. The turtles will all be placed in their tanks at the same times and they will all eat at the same time, which is 5 P.M. I will conduct this experiment 3 times. I will put each turtle in a different tank, then 50 of the tanks will have clean water and the other 50 will have algae water. I will stick numbers on each tank so I know which turtle is in what tank. For example an algae turtle tank may have the label of Experiment 1-Algae Tank-Turtle 36 For my first experiment I take 100 painted turtles from the container they were in. I will place them all in separate tanks at the same time. I will use an automatic feeding machine to feed them all the same food at the same exact time. On the first day I fed them feeder fish and a little bit of kale. They all basked at least once during the day I noted. I noticed that the painted turtles in algae water seemed to camouflage with the algae. In fact, I could barely see the turtles when they hid in the algae. At the end of the day, I took a random number generator and matched two turtles, one from each type of water and counted how many rings were around their scutes. They both had 8 scute rings I noted. After that I fed the turtles a mix of feeder fish, crawfish, kale, and some plants I placed in the tanks were nibbled on. I also noticed that the turtles in the algae tank would sometimes nibble on the algae as a snack. I would then measure each turtle and their scute rings once every 2 days. After a few weeks I noticed that the algae water turtles had 3 more scutes than the clean water turtles. After a month I noticed that the algae water turtles had 5 more scutes than the clean water turtles. I now repeat this experiment two more times. This is because a good scientist never does an experiment once.

Observations of My Experiment
I noticed that when I fed the painted turtles a mix of live fish, crawfish, and vegetation they were more active. I also noticed that the algae were snacked on by the painted turtles in the algae tanks. I noticed that the painted turtles preferred to hide in the algae. Painted turtles also basked at least once a day. I noticed that when the painted turtles grew, they moved faster and were more active.

Analyze
Analyze-Looking at your data and creating a graph from it

Conclusion
Conclusion-From your observations, research, and prior knowledge; this states whether your hypothesis was right or not My hypothesis that if painted turtles live in algae water, they will be happier and grow more is true. The Algae water painted turtles grew two more rings on their scutes that the clean, clear and filtered watered turtles did. I fed them all the same foods and took measurements of the turtle height once every two days, and that is how I proved my hypothesis is correct.

Bibliography
1. Elsworth,Stephany. "Painted Turtle Diseases". eHow. http://www.ehow.com/list_6693747_painted-turtlediseases.html(9/10/11). 2. Harding,James. "Painted Turtle". Wildlife and Natural History q-Line. http://critterguy.museum.msu.edu/fieldguide/Query.html?animalType= Turtles&animalGenus=Chrysemys&animalSpecies=picta&animalSubS pecies=(9/9/11). 3. "Painted Turtle". Lee and Rose Warner Nature Center. http://www.smm.org/warnernaturecenter/animals/paintedturtle(9/10/11) . 4. "Painted Turtle". Painted Turtle Directory.http://www.grizzlyrun.com/pets/reptiles/turtles/painted_turtle /default.htm(9/10/11). 5. "Painted Turtle". Popular Pets.http://www.popularpets.net/turtles/caresheets/painted-turtle.php(9/10/11). 6. "Western Painted Turtle". A Guide To The Reptiles and Amphibians of California.http://www.californiaherps.com/turtles/pages/c.p.bellii.html (9/10/11)