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Today I bought my third fish, a rare anabantid from the congo - ctenopomas acutirostre (a million commons names: African Spotted Leaf Fish, Spotted Climbing Perch, Leopard Gourami, African Bush Fish) and after bringing it home it was just laying on the floor of its temporary habitat inert (I realize now it was just pretending to be a leaf). So I knew these fish prefer live foods, and afraid it's life was in danger, I raced to the pet store to buy some live food - the clerk sold me on an absurd number of brine shrimp, which I quickly emptied into the ctenopomas tank, a split second later remembering that brine shrimp will only survive a few hours in fresh water. Fearing a subsequent lethal ammonia spike in my (temporary) uncycled ctenopoma habitat, I quickly netted most of the brine shrimp and put them into my turtle habitat.

Terra and Althea had more fun in the next thirty minutes than I have seen them have in the 33 days we've been together. They loved seeking out and snapping up the brine shrimp - they disposed of almost all of them in no time at all.

I'm a sucker for making them happy, but on the nutrition section of this site, it recommends brine shrimp only rarely. Is this because in general it's important to limit protein intake? Or is there an issue with brine shrimp in particular?

Thanks,

Jonathan

Nothing is wrong with brine shrimp, they even look yummy even to me. You're right: The reason why it should only be fed once a month is because of the importance of protein limitation. Too much protein for your turtles may cause permanent damages. Though they may LOVE you for giving them so much yummy stuff, it is better to hold off on them (:

Okay, I'll restrain myself.

Come to think of it though, brine shrimp have the advantage of not having a lot of meat on them - i.e. a turtle can have the fun of hunting down a dozen of them and still have consumed (probably) less protein than a single bite of tuna...

THats alot of protein for a turtle even though their not meaty, id say once a month throw like 10 or less in.

Yeah, I just meant, rather than give them a head-side portion of tuna each, they'd get a lot of fun out of chasing down a couple dozen brine shrimp - or if I ever buy brine for my other tanks, I could toss in 2-3 here or there and not feel like I was over-feedng them.

Yea,hyou don't want to give them to much protein,because it can cause pyramiding,and the way to prevent pyramiding is to feed them vegetables.It's goos to try carrots and lettuce,if that doesn't work,try soaking them in tuna juice.Well,hope this helps!