Feeding and Nutrition :: whats the cleanest food to use

[JESUSfreak]

hey i was wondering what food is gonna leave the least amount of "mess" behind? i know its gonna leave a little but obveisly others leave a lot more. oh and im feeding Mo the little stick thingys i fed him little krill balls or w/e you call them and that was a disaster i lost him in the tank cause it was so dirty he he and the tank is like between 10 and 20 gallons im not sure how much it is acsactly the point is its a small tank i want a new one but anyway im gettin off topic lol so ya what kind of food is the cleanest?

[kmichael55]

Not sure about that, but you could feed him in a separate container with water (from your tank) and then just dump the dirty water when he's done eating... I usually let mine hang out in the feeding tub for a while after so I can dump the poo with the discarded food instead of having to deal with it in the tank.

[JESUSfreak]

ok tyvm i have been thinkin about doin that

[RunninWideOpen]

really you want to feed your turtles a balanced and varied diet based on what's good for them (see the nutrition section of the main site). cleanliness kinda depends on the turtles anyway, a couple of mine are pretty clean eaters, the other makes a mess big enough for 4 turtles.

i'm with kstewart, try feeding in a seperate container.

[marisa]

The cleanest food is one that doesn't fall apart and one that your turtle eats completely. With a small tank and not that much water, though, just about any food fed in the tank is going to affect water quality fairly quickly. To me, the best thing you could do to help keep the water clean is to feed Mo in a separate container of water. You can take some of the tank water and use that, and replace what's been taken from the tank with fresh water (kind of a mini partial water change).

[industrial_girl_2000]

Honestly, the only "clean" food is green or romaine lettuce. But turtles need turtle-pellets too, so you can't only feed them lettuce.

Feed your turtle outside of his tank in a separate plastic pan of water (rubbermaid dish pans work perfect). Dump the water after he is done eating. I have been doing this for 17 yrs & it works great.

[cooleststan]

one thing I am afraid of is the diff temperatures of the water in the feeding container. It would be a bit colder, could the turtle get RI from this tempreature cahnge?

[marisa]

How much different is the temp of the water you put in the feeding container? Why don't you just take water from the tank and put it in the feeding container? It would be about the same temp for a little while, and if he's a fast eater, you could put him right back in the tank.

You could also use water that's just a bit warmer than the tank water (I used to heat a little when my RES was a hatchling and the weather was cold) to keep the temp up longer.

If your turtle is healthy, he's not exposed to drafts/breezes, the water in the container isn't that much different from the temp in the tank, and he's not kept in the water until it's gone really cool, I think his chances of getting an RI would be minimal.

[orca_gurl12]

My turtle is a messy eater too but I bought him some guppies and two ghost shrimp that were supposed to be dinner (In fact I named one rosie red Dinner ) but he didn't eat most of them and they all are helping keep the tank cleaner than usual. I don't feed them any fish food they just eat the pellets he drops and I occasionally crush up some turtle pellets just for them. That could be an option, plus the guppies are pretty colors swimming around and the occasional live food if he can catch one.