Habitat - Indoor :: Cohabitors

[g29w]

My hatchlings eat everything that I put in the tank.

I bought 9-10 minnows that survived for awhile and now only one of them is left. Strangely they never eat him and he's gotten pretty big.

I bought 3 golden mystery snails and within a few days, one of them was eaten. (1 just died on its on)

I also bought 2 chinese algae eaters and they got eaten in a few days too.

I guess my tank will never have any coinhabitants - I'm thinking of trying to buy a mass of ghost shrimp to see what happens.

[scripta_elegans]

They'll slowly disappear too. Think of your cute little turtle as an oppertunistic eater, and beautifully adapted hunter. People have described 4 inch turtles slowly eating large Coi. Even size is no guarentee of safety. Even the turtles may not always be safe together. I myself witnessed a 1 inch hatchling kill and eat a rosie bigger than her. The Ghost Shrimp lasted 2 weeks. There were 25 of them, so that's better than average right?

[megcornell]

I can't put anything in my tank either. I bought Leo 10 rosy reds last week because I was going out of town and felt guilty leaving her with her turtle-sitter, and they were gone before I'd even packed my bags

[steve]

I'm in the same boat. Nothing is safe in my tank...

[pumpkinsherbet]

the longest anything has lasted in my tank was three ghost shrimp for about 2 weeks. when i first got them i caught the turts staring them down a few times, but taking no real interest. then one day they were just gone.

to be completely honest, i'm surprised they lasted that long.

[scripta_elegans]

I think the shrimp were safe longer because they were really hard to see! I had to really really look for them even with 25 in the tank.

[pumpkinsherbet]

yeah, i thought it was lack of interest at first b/c i'd actually caught aeryn staring them down a couple times, then just taking off. after about a week i decided she was probably sizing them up, then after another week they were gone so i took like a 10 second moment of silence cuz they were so cool, and decided to forego getting the rosies i had planned to buy that day.

one of the shrimp had a bad habit of going for their pellets, so i would imagine that's how it met with its demise. the rest just followed.

[scripta_elegans]

I bet she figured out what the movement she had been seeing indicated finally. I noticed my two looking at them for the first week, but they seemed to lose them again as soon as the shrimp stopped moving. But Spike wised up to the fact they were edible, and slowly they dwindled down to 0, because not one of them were always still.

[pumpkinsherbet]

there was also the possibility that they jumped out (someone in another forum had owned them and said they have a pretty good jumping distance. i told them the specs of my tank and they said they could still jump out.) i do take the cover off during cleaning, and the basking spot stayed uncovered. i've not seen any shrimp carcass around the old tank area, but to be honest i haven't really looked. i'm pretty sure they were just food.

[kneenuh]

haha, yeah.

I looked at my turtle in a VERY different light after I saw her chomp my favourite goldfish in half and let the head sink to the bottom, them she greedily ate that up too.

now I just throw my feeder fish in (minnows, guppies, snails, ghost shrimp) And walk away. I don't want to see her devour them. Nothing is safe with her around.

I used to have my guppy tank right in front of her tank on a desk. And she would see them through the glass and try and nip at them!

[Evie]

We have an algae-eater that's at least ten inches long. Would he be safe with a pair of three-four inch turtles? The koi thing is sort of daunting.

[scripta_elegans]

I'd say it could lead to a horrible slow death for the fish. They might leave it alone. And they might eat it little piece by little piece.

[RunninWideOpen]

Are you guys giving your fish hiding places? I got this fake log that's in kinda a U shape so it looks like a bridge. My turtles chase my fish around all day, but the fish are always fast enough to go hide.

My turts are already both about 6" though and one of them is fat and slow. at least he's getting his excersize chasing those fish! maybe he'll finally catch them when he loses some weight.