Habitat - Indoor :: Good fish to live with

[earthfirst]

I wanted to know what fish would be ok living with an about 1 1/2 inch red eared slider i was thinking of the Plecostomus cause they have a pretty tough skin any others you think would be ok

[Kemul]

At that size, the turtle probably will leave the pleco alone. However, sooner or
later, the pleco's fins might get eaten or nicked by the turtle. Pleco's scale is not
good for turtles because it's hard.

Good fish for turtle treats are minnows and guppies. Goldfish is too fatty.

Fish in an aquarium with turtle will become turtle food eventually. Don't get too
attached to the fish.

[V Lou]

A lot of people mention mollies, guppies, swordtails. All are livebearers, so you could breed them in a separate tank to maintain a constant (free) supply and they are relatively fast swimmers. Large numbers of them in the turtle tank at the same time (30+, safety in numbers at work) helps them survive, because while the turtle tries to chase one, the chances are good that another fish will distract the turtle to chase it, on and on, so the turtle ends up doing more chasing than it does actually catching, eventually becoming tired enough to give up. And, if you do lose fish in to the turtle, there is your nursery full of free fish, solving the problem of having to buy to replace.

I am not sure about your 1.5" turtle, but my 4" turtles bite through cuttlebone, all the way through... so a "tough" fish skin isn't going to do much in the way of armour, I'd imagine even for your 1.5"er. A slow swimming fish, or one that likes to lounge and hang out would be a goner, unless it doesn't taste good, I'd guess.

I'm going to buy fish pairs and breed them, too. Guppies and swordtail are very colorful fish, so they would entertain the turtles and me, too. I so can't wait. I am still setting up my habitat. It's been almost 6 weeks now. What a fun project. I look forward to a couple of weeks from now, when their habitat is ready, so I can move them out of my master bathtub. They are getting sick of all the white! Stircrazy-turtles!!!

[rturtle1]

electric yellow cichlids are good. ods are they wont get eaten. Thats what i am gunna get. Im also gunnal get some more semi aggressive fish so they can watch their own backs

[rturtle1]

http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Articl ... tokeep.htm this site has some good info. Have fun

[earthfirst]

Any info on breeding mollies, guppies or swordtails is it pretty much just put them in there and let them do their stuff or do i need to make certain conditions and stuff like that

[SpenceMasta]

your logic is backwards, tough skin and armor is bad cause it can choke your turtle or get stuck inside it

if you need to ask about maintaining certain conditions then you probably do, fish are very sensitive to water quality much more than turtles, you would need a water test to check for pH, water hardness, nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia if you want them to survive let alone breed, you could dump a turtle into tap water and it would survive, but not fish

[earthfirst]

i know about maintaining the water for fish but i wanted to know if theres anything special i would have to do for breeding them.

[earthfirst]

and do you think a 10 gallon tank would be alright for breeding mollies

[V Lou]

I do not believe I have backwards logic, but occassionally I am misunderstood.

Google is great for finding out such things as the appropriate size of tank for breeding mollies, based on how many mollies you plan to house. Once you get a feel for that relationship, it will be easier to choose your size of tank.

I bought something for my turtle-habitat's air bubbler (simply there to aerate the water for the bacterial colonies of the external filter) and it has Large hiding areas within it. I hope the fry and their parents will use those areas when they need to. If they don't, and they are eaten too quickly, I will then buy a separate breeding aquarium, based on the number of fish I will usually have in it. I would be inclined to buy on the side of larger rather than to buy smaller because for a few extra bucks, the quality of life for the fish would be much greater.

Does that help?

[earthfirst]

Yeah, thanks but are you going to keep the pregnant fish in the same tank with the turtle? that seems a bit dangerous

[jay2487]

There is risk in keeping thick armored fish but a 1.5 inch RES isn't going to take anything off of a 3 inch common pleco. When it gets bigger you might have to worry about that but by that time you will have to get rid of the pleco because it's over a foot long and could risk your turtles health.

Spencemasta is right in that your going to have to keep near perfect water conditions or you will lose all the fish. First off you have to cycle the tank. If you have a filter now and have had the turtle in the tank for a little while and don't use city water untreated to do water changes you might already have a cycled tank. You need to get a api master test kit for like $25 and see where you stand now. Constant water changes will not be enough to keep fish alive like it is for your turtle, you want perfect water parameters so you don't have to change water half as much as this stresses fish. You might have the perfect fish for living with a turtle but if it gets the least bit stressed it is succeptable to disease and if it gets a disease your turtle will instinctually hunt the weakest fish out and eat it. Any injured or sick fish will get eaten and seeing as how getting chased by a turtle will stress them anyways you want to make sure that your water is the best it could be.

A10gal is fine for a guppy breeder
here is a DIY I made just on that topic
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24614

[V Lou]

You are so right. I'd better get a breeder tank going. Once there are a lot of fish, then maybe some pregnant ones would make it?

Any thoughts on that, anyone?

[jay2487]

The pregnant ones will have just as good a chance as the rest, if your speaking of the fry they will give birth to then no they will not have as high a survival rate but not because of the turtles but because of the other fish. Unless you have a VERY thickly planted tank I would remove pregos if you want there fry to survive. Also you would have to put screening bags over every filter intake because that is where most fry will be lost.

[Outlander]

I used to keep my 2.5" RES with 2 Golden Chinese Algae Eaters. One lasted 3 months and the other lasted 7 months. They were pretty good fish to keep in the tank because they helped to keep it clean and didn't seem sensitive to the whole nitrogen/pH thing (I don't test my nitrogen levels). Pretty smart fish too, because whenever my turtle would try to catch them they'd just swim to his backside and attach onto his shell!