my 4in male turtle is always doing the mating dance and the female(5-6in) sometimes looks or jus pushes away or bites the males claws wht shall i doand the other thing is that when will the mate it bin weeksssssss of the mating dance and no matingwht going on here and the female sometimes look intrest of him and then she jus push him away later plz help the faster the better and ty soo much 4 helping
Your male may not be so much interested in mating as he is in declaring dominance. RES have a reputation of being very territorial, especially in a too-small tank. You need a larger tank for them. The male could occupy a 40-gallon tank by himself but would soon outgrow it.
Perhaps your 40 gallon tank is not suitable for her to nest. I have never heard of turtles nesting in an aquarium. In my experience the always nested in sand or a pile of dead leaves and such. The insufficient space could be why she is rejecting the male. Edit: 10 or 28 gallons? If a 40 gallon isn't enough then 10 or 28 is clearly not enough. Turtles need space. They usually are not very social depending on species but majority of the time they are all solitary reptiles. They come together to mate basically. All reptiles are cold blooded and like to bask in the sun, but that doesn't mean they need or want full sunlight all the time. They need someplace to hide as they are solitary. They need water to dive in so they can cool off. The female finds a suitable place to nest. The aquarium needs to have a suitable place. In a 10 or 28 gallon tank there is no way to have what is required for space or nesting. They need a pond type environment with a sandy area out of water where they can bask, mate and nest.
