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Atlas / Library / Emydidae / Yellow-bellied Slider
Emydidae

Yellow-bellied Slider

Trachemys scripta scripta

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. reptifiles.com

Photograph: Joshua Liverman · CC BY

Photographed by an observer on iNaturalist and published under a Creative Commons licence; the photographer and the licence are named under the image. It is not an animal of ours, and no animal was handled by us to produce it.

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.

Check your setup against this sheet I keep one 123 plants usable with this species
Back to the globe My keep

https://keepr.pet/husbandry/en/trachemys-scripta-scripta

‹ All husbandry guides
warm end30–32 °C
cool end23–24 °C
Diet1 days

The numbers

Thermal gradient

152025303540 °C
23–24°Cool side
30–32°Warm side

A real gradient, 30–32°C warm against 23–24°C cool, so the animal chooses. The sheet states no separate night figure.

Why

Same scale on every sheet here, so two species compare by eye.

The sheet stateswarm 30-32 °C / cool 23-24 °C

UVB

T5 6%required

The sheet statesone 34" Arcadia T5 HO 6% or Zoo Med T5 HO ReptiSun 5.0 in a reflective T5 HO fixture; hung from the ceiling to be 13-14" above the basking spot

Enclosure
at least 10 gallons of water per inch of shell length; you will need at least 80-110 gallons of water

Identity

Origin

Enclosure and conditions

Temperature
warm 30–32 °C / cool 23–24 °C

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.

Diet

Feeding rhythm

every 1 dAs the sheet states
28Meals in 28 days

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 statesomnivorous; Protein foods: crickets, earthworms, dubia roaches, freeze-dried shrimp/krill, frozen bloodworms, silkworms, snails, guppies, mollies, platies, mosquito fish; Vegetable foods: collard greens, dandelion greens + flowers, endive, green leaf lettuce, kale, red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, raw grated squash, carrots, green beans, raw grated sweet potato; younger than 1 year: 50% protein / 50% vegetables protein food daily vegetable food daily turtle pellets every other day; older than 1 year: 25% protein / 75% vegetables protein food 1-2x/week vegetable food daily turtle pellets 2-3x/week

Common questions

How big does it get? It is tiny now.

That coin-sized hatchling becomes a 20 to 30 cm turtle that needs a very large tank, and the females get the biggest.

What equipment do I need?

A big tank, a strong filter, a dry basking platform, a heat lamp and a UV lamp. Filtration is what keeps the water from smelling.

Can I release it in a temple pond if it gets too big?

Please do not. It is one of the world's most invasive turtles and releasing it is both harmful and illegal, so bring it back to us instead.

How long does it live?

Twenty to thirty years, sometimes forty.

What it needs

A heat sourcebecause temp — warm 30-32 °C / cool 23-24 °C
A thermostat to regulate itbecause temp — warm 30-32 °C / cool 23-24 °C
A thermometerbecause temp — warm 30-32 °C / cool 23-24 °C
UVB 6-6% (T5), stated as requiredbecause uvb — one 34" Arcadia T5 HO 6% or Zoo Med T5 HO ReptiSun 5.0 in a reflective T5 HO fixture; hung from the ceiling to be 13-14" above the basking spot
Not stated: The size of the enclosurethis sheet describes the enclosure without a figure: « at least 10 gallons of water per inch of shell length; you will need at least 80 »

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.

Sources

reptifiles.com — lu le 2026-08-04gbif.org — lu le 2026-08-08

Others in this group

Red-eared SliderTrachemys scripta elegansmarginatedTestudo marginataPainted TurtleChrysemys pictaCommon musk turtle (Stinkpot)Sternotherus odoratusEastern mud turtleKinosternon subrubrumMalayan Box TurtleCuora amboinensisChinese Box TurtleCuora flavomarginataEastern Box TurtleTerrapene carolina

What this sheet states

46%
TemperatureHumidityEnclosure sizeActivityOriginDietSourcesUVB

This sheet states 3 of 7 of the fields this product runs on. What is missing turns something off: humidity instrument and audit, enclosure size audit, day/night engine and awake count on the globe, the diet section. We show the gap rather than fill it with a plausible number.

UVB is measured but does not count: it is absent from 421 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.