Feeding and Nutrition :: What kind of fish to feed turtles?

[menrb827]

I've been using smelt fish to feed my turtles... Are their other fish to feed them besides smelt? Thanks.

[Diamondbacks4Life]

rosey reds and guppies are otehr good fish to feed your turtles

[blulite]

any fish out of the supermarket...i look out for special offers on fillets and just throw the entire fillet in..its great watching them rip it apart. prawns, they love prawns.

theres a section in my local supermarket that sells off the fish that needs eating same or next day, the turts love grocery days lol

i tend to avoid smoked fish, but not sure why.. i just do. maybe illl try it this week

[menrb827]

Thanks.... =)

[Ranger The Red Ear Slider]

I would avoid fish from your local market and focus more on live fish like minnows guppies and sometimes goldfish.

[blulite]

may i ask why u avoid fish from the supermarket? in my eyes if its fit for human consumption, then its more than safe for your turtle.

price per 2 large cod, haddock, hake, salmon, mackerel etc fillets at the end of the day in the super market up to £0.50

price per minnow, guppy = £1-3

there is no comparrison. a lot of pet stores have problems with their stocks, tanks etc.. i would much prefer to feed my turts something i know is good quality than feed them epensive food that could be contaminated.

fish from the supermarket or local fishmonger is by far better quality, cleaner and safer than random feeder fish from petstores.

for the cost you will pay for 10 feeder fish you can buy 2 weeks worth of fresh feed for your turtles and freeze it.

[turtlelvr2000]

DO NOT FEED YOUR TURTLE GOLDFISH!!!!!!!

It is very unhealthy for them and it is like eating a jumbo monster size big mac

[Tokapeli]

guppies seem really tiny from what ive seen, my turtle is pretty big, so it seems like goldfish are the only feeder fish that make worth the chase, are there any bigger feeder fish that i can give her? I know its unhealthy, but i think it makes her quality of life way better to have something to chase around. I guess if she gets too fat though she wont be doing much chasing anyway lol.

[tammi]

Goldfish are high in fat and are not good for them. Rosey Red minnows can get pretty big but even the little ones are fun for them to chase.

I was told fresh fish from the market was ok but to freeze it first to kill off the parasites but freezing does deplete the B vitimins from the fish.

All my turtles like the big apple snails, ramshorn snails, nightcrawlers, blood worms, krill and meal worm. And my RES will eat the crawfish too but I take the claws off first to avoid injury.

But keep in mind theses items should all be treat as a treat and not a main diet. RES need more veggies then animal protien espacially as they get older.

[Tokapeli]

^and the snail shells and exoskeloten of the craw fish wont cause impaction? I figured they would eat that stuff in the wild all the time but what if a sharp piece of shell gets lodged in her digestive system? And do you think a craw fish could injure a large adult RES without taking the claws off? I love giving Kaya live food, i feel like it makes her quality of life better, makes her feel like a predator again and hopefully makes her forget how small her tank is momentarily.

One thing to be careful of though: im not sure if a RES would be at risk like a fish would, but my dad has a pretty big fish, i forget what kind of fish it is but its about 7-8 inches long and looks very cool, irridescent scales and red tipped fins. He gave him some worms to eat and the fish got a deadly parasite from it, he had to quarantine the fish, get some very expensive medicine and hes currently going thru about a week of treatment, hes looking better now but everybody is saying that he probably wont make it, my dad got pretty attached to that fish so its pretty sad watching him stress about it.
Anyway, has anybody had anything like this happen to their RES due to live food?