Any pointers? RES will go in her nesting box but won't use it!
My RES is absolutely gravid; she's 11 and we have this struggle every year. I know she normally lays in the water and eats them and she's never been ill or had an issue doing that, but I really want to try and give her a spot she feels safe to dig.
Her tank is a 100 gallon stock tank, penn-plax cascade 1500 for a filter and the heater is set to about 75-76F for the water temp. The egg crate and ceramic tile is her usual basking area. I turned her heat lamp to the topsoil so there's a heated spot. It's about 70/30 topsoil to play sand that's about 8 inches deep (her carapace is about 9.5). She's definitely already gone in there and hung out without trying to escape, which is a huge win because that's all she's ever done before when we just set her in there and covered her up, but no digging yet.
Right now she's roaming around the apartment supervised and we're about to put her back in, she did just seem to want to dig and she croaked a bit which she's never done before!
I can get a harness and take her outside, but I'm very nervous to do so since we live next to a golf course in an apartment complex, so there's dogs and probably pesticides/chemical fertilizer plus I scared we'll lose her