Can I keep it?
Setup
The numbers
Temperature
The cool side, 23–26°C. This sheet states the cool side only. It gives no warm side or basking figure, so the hot end is not in our data. Same scale on every sheet here, so two species compare by eye.
The sheet statescool 23-26 °C
UVB
The sheet statesUVA and UVB is a necessity for a healthy turtle. Indoor turtles require UVB lighting and supplemental heat lights for 10-12 hours a day; any Zilla Fluorescent UVA/UVB bulb; replace bulbs every 6 months
Traceable. The figures above appear in the page we cite, which we opened on 10 Aug 2026. That means you can check them, not that we have confirmed they are right. zillarules.com
Drag the sun. Eastern mud turtle is Diurnal, so what it is doing changes with the light.
Enclosure and conditions
What your climate adds
This sheet states a range to hold. Your local climate decides how much work holding it is. Pick the nearest city: nothing is sent anywhere, the choice stays in this browser.
What it needs
Every line above is deduced from a value this sheet states, and names which one. Nothing here is a general recommendation. What the sheet does not state is listed too, rather than left out: a kit that looks complete is worse than one that names its gap.
Food
Diet
Feeding rhythm
Twenty-eight days, one row. Each band is a meal window.
Why
The windows widen as they go because the interval is a range: four meals after a 10–14 day cycle land anywhere between day 40 and day 56.
The sheet statesThey primarily eat worms, fish, snails, and dark green leafy vegetables; Feed them one protein meal every other day and leafy greens daily
Daily life
Behaviour and handling
Health
When to see a vet
Provide real land area (semi-aquatic). Clean water + varied diet prevents most issues.
The species
Identity
Reproduction
Good to know
- A tiny hardy semi-aquatic turtle that spends real time walking on land.
The way of life is written in this sheet, word for word. The climate words summarise the two figures above them, they do not add to them.
CITES II is a global listing and holds in every country. National law is not global, and we hold no national wildlife law for any country, Thailand included. Check your own authority before buying or selling.
Questions & sources
Common questions
How big does it get?
Small, around 8 to 12 cm, so a modest tank suits it for life.
Does it swim much?
It walks along the bottom more than it swims, so keep the water shallow with plants and branches to climb.
Does it bite?
It can nip if you grab it, and like other mud and musk turtles it reaches backwards, but nothing dangerous.
What does it eat?
Almost any animal food: pellets, snails, worms, insects and small fish.
https://keepr.pet/husbandry/en/kinosternon-subrubrum
Others in this group
What this sheet states
This sheet states 6 of 7 of the fields this product runs on. What is missing turns something off: humidity instrument and audit. We show the gap rather than fill it with a plausible number.
UVB is measured but does not count: it is absent from 420 of 678 sheets, and on most of them that is not a gap, since a nocturnal snake's sheet has no reason to state a UV index. Counting it would call the library incomplete without cause.