Feeding and Nutrition :: Feeding my Turtle Duckweed

[annabanana116]

Hi:
I have a red eared slider turtle, who I'm guessing is a little younger than 2 years old. In the past couple of months, I have been introducing more vegetables to his diet, but I haven't until now tried aquatic plants. I know that they are a pretty important part of the diet, but I don't know a lot about them.

I just ordered a bunch of duckweed to feed my turtle. It came today,but I hadn't done much additional research on it, so started searching it online. I didn't realize how rapidly it grows. I want to be able to feed it to my turtle, but I absolutely don't want to turn my aquarium into a duckweed pond, or grow the duckweed in my tank. I put just a little bit of it in the tank, and it started spreading out all over the tank (I have a 55 gallon tank). Is this going to make a mess of my tank? I perfectly willing to clean my tank more often, if it means my turtle can have this as part of his diet, but how extreme is this stuff?

Also, if I feed him just a little bit at a time, without putting it all in the tank to grow, how can I store it, without it dying?

Finally, Squirt (my turtle ) seems completely uninterested in the plant. In fact, he has been swatting at it to get it out of the way. I tried putting one of his food pellets, which he loves, in some of it, and he ate the pellet, and spit the plant out. How can I encourage him to eat it?

Based on these circumstances, is the duckweed just a bad idea? If so, what are some other good aquatic plants to feed him?

Thanks!
-Anna and Squirt

[ljapa]

My son's turtle gets duckweed once or twice a week. From what I've been able to find, it's nutritional and eaten by turtles in the wild.

Tobi is a pig, so I can't help on getting Squirt interested in duckweed. I can say that it will make a mess. I grow mine in a refugium attached to the turtle tank. Any put in the main tank disappears quickly. There's really not any way to keep it outside of water. However, I bet you could toss some in a bucket of aquarium water siphoned out of the tank, as long as you supply light.

And, yes, it can grow fast, but in doing so, it sucks out tons of nitrates.

There's a section on plants on the main site

http://www.redearslider.com/plants.html

At the bottom, there is an aquatic plant section. Duckweed is one of the ones starred as highly recommended. Of the others listed, I've grown anacharis, frogbit and amazon sword. The amazon sword is slow growing for me and cannot supply a regular source of food. The frogbit I tried all died. The anacharis grew (and grows) great in the refugium.

Duckweed's a messy plant in general. Anacharis is not as messy when it's growing, but is even worse when it's being consumed because the leaves break off into smaller pieces but float in the water, not on top like duckweed.

Tobi loves food. She would absolutely destroy any plants grown in here tank.

What I'm trying to say, poorly, is that if Squirt develops a taste for duckweed or any other aquatic plant, you probably can't grow it in Squirt's tank. That being said, I think supplying the kinds of plants RES have evolved to eat has to be good.

Consider some type of grow out tank for plants--and I'd say duckweed and anacharis would be good choices.

As to getting Squirt interested in eating veggies, check out turtle Jell-O shots:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17486

[devilduck]

I grow duckweed in my planted tank, while it grows very quickly in comparison to most other aquatic plants, it does not grow fast enough the primary food for a adult turtle. Duckweed will grow in pretty much any container that has still water and a good light source. You can just use a plastic bin with some tank water in it. Since duckweed is a floating plant the water level doesn't have to be too high, probably 5-6 inches should be plenty.

It's a little messy to feed. I just let the turtle have at it for a few minutes and then come by with a net to collect the uneaten pieces.

Happy Holidays!