Feeding and Nutrition :: Fish are friends, not food ^_^

[spaceapple]

At least that's what my turtles seem to think.

I discovered a good fish store about 20 minutes away and was excited to see that they had rosy minnows. I picked up two and was very anxious to see what the turtles would do when I put them in the tank. Well, they were intrigued for a little while and chased them lazily, but they certainly weren't very menacing. Since then they have mostly been ignoring them altogether or swimming with them playfully with no signs of wanting to eat them. Meanwhile, the minnows are having a blast exploring all the nooks and crannies in the tank.

What do you think? Will the minnows mysteriously disappear one day while I'm not looking, or will they continue to be my turtles' new swimming buddies?

[packfan1]

Most likely over time they will "disappear." About two months ago we were leaving town for four days and I went to purchase one dozen to give them a constant source of food. By mistake I ended up with two dozen.
I have two tanks, one turtle in one and two in another. Just putting them in I watched my turtles chase many of them down and gobble them up. I still have two fish in one tank and three in another. About a month ago those numbers were double. It is all up to the turtle as to when they decided to chase them down and eat them.

[Daniel3507]

i got 20 for my tank one time. i watched him eat 3 or 4 in no time. now the rest are slowly going away

[Raphulk]

how big are your turtles?
it is possible that they are not agile enough to catch the minnows, they are pretty fast after all.

[spaceapple]

Oh, they're just little. Not even two inches. But I don't think they've really tried to catch the fish at all. It doesn't matter to me whether they eat the fish or keep them as friends; I just thought it was funny they seemed playful instead of hungry! It's actually pretty handy to have the minnows darting around snatching up pellet crumbs...

[untsmurf]

Some turtles (especially the little ones) don't have the urge to chase because they aren't hungry. They might catch on after a little while though.

[mzkitty23]

my turt won't eat a fish for anything...but he's a rare case!

[ColeweezY23]

my bigger turtle franklin has eaten two catfish already. hes a monster. hes about 4.5 inches shell length and the fish were probably 3.5 inches each. the first one went the first night. but the other stayed for a while. it happened at night...mysteriously sort of. im not sure about your turtles but mine love fish.

[Doc_Moore_J]

Hahha I was thinking the same thing, but like Pacfan1 says, they just dissapeared. I have a couple medium sized minnows that my little guys wont touch, but I had a few real tiny ones and for a few days they were adjusting and liking the tank, then all of a sudden, they are gone hahhaa. Must have been a midnight snack or something.

[raverqueenage]

Hurley ate I think one small feeder gold fish. We then got some "feeder guppies" thinking he would like them...well turns out there was two babies in there that were actually platies.

He didn't care about any of them so I kept two male feeder guppies cause they had adorable spots and coloring and gave them to my female betta as buddies. She likes them. They all eat together and get on well.

The platys are still with Hurley and sometimes they will even take his food from his mouth. He could care less. They are huge now too so he might be intimidated by their size to try and eat them.

[PcBuilder14]

I can't have fish in mine they doe mysteriously after 3 days. I'll try 2 about 2 weeks after I get my 55 gallon.

[pariah]

There is still one minnow in Mitchell's tank after we were out of town for a week. It's the fastest one, I think. Occasionally I see him make a half assed attempt at it but it swims away and Mitch just comes back to where I am and resumes the "feed me" doggy paddle begging exercises.

He used to go after the snails but has since given up. At first he couldn't figure out why those curly rocks smell like food, but now he doesn't seem to care.


But I still won't be surprised if I wake up one morning and the fishy is gone and/or a cracked snail shell is on the bottom of the tank.

[zenalisa]

do fish keep the tank clean? are there any cleaner fish that the turtles wont eat? my tank gets pretty nasty!

[untsmurf]

Most turtles will eat anything that you put in the tank. Snails can clean the tank, but they're slow and don't really have a defense if the turtle takes interest. Sucker fish are faster, but if the turtle takes interest, they're easily caught. Plus, they're very bony fish and your turtle might get hurt ingesting them. Some people have had success keeping sucker fish in their tanks though.

If your tank is "pretty nasty" you probably need a bigger tank, a better filter, or both.

[zenalisa]

my turtle is already familiar with escargo. there were snails in the tank from when we used it for fish... the snails were gone in two days!

im getting a bigger tank as soon as possible, i just found out about the whole 10 gallons per shell inch thing.