Feeding and Nutrition

Hello everyone

Since when my turtle eat absolutely anything, (even camping mat :roll:

), I thought that it would like to grow her my own parasite free aquatic plants, live foods (guppyd, mealworms, crickets etc.), but my question is how to do it so that the food will be parasite-free?
I plan to keep live foods and aquatic plants in separate aquariums, one aquarium for plants (no fishes, snails in there) and separate container for worms, crickets etc.

If I buy the petstore a few aquatic plants, then how do I know that they are clean from parasites, because, after all in the plant tanks live also fishes, snails and they may have (usuali have) parasites, diseases, etc. and when they make poo the parasites fall into the plants. Then I buy this plant, take it home, give it to the turtle and the new parasite life cycle can begin. I know I'm paranoid...better safe than sorry :wink:

I don't want that anymore because this parasite treatment is way too stressful for my turtle and as you all already know I have one bad experience with parasites.

So my question would be how can I make sure that my plants (and other live food) are parasite and disease free. Washing the plants before giving them will be elementary, but what else could I do with them?
If I can not be 100% sure that the plants are clean, I'd rather not give them to her.

Any suggestions are welcome

Thank you

Grow your own plants organically. You can do terrestrial lettuce and edible dandelion from seed. You can also try fast growing floating plants like water lettuce, frogbit, anacharis, and water milfoil in a shallow container outside. You can purchase minnows, mollys, ramshorn snails, and other live bearing fish from a trusted local breeder.

Devilduck I have place (summer house) where I grow different lettuce, carrots, dandelion leaves etc. And when winter comes I have to make little greenhouse to my balcony, this balcony has windows and it's warm in there.
Anyway I have fish tank where I have some plants like Duckweed, Frogbit, Water Hyacinth etc. My question is that how I can make 100% sure that they are parasite free if I start new, only for aquatic plants tank where are no fishes, snails? I planning buy some more plants in future only for my turtle to grow and eat and before I'm going to give these to her I want to make sure they are free from parasites. Or does just washing help get rid of these things?

What about a planted tank?

Steve I'm going to do only planted tank...only for the plants...nothing else will go in there exept water :lol:

But what I want to know is are that these plants that I put in there, whether they are parasite free and if not how do I get them clean?
Will just washing them under running tap water help or not? Or do I have to use some kind of treatment?

There are some aquatic plants listed here: http://www.redearslider.com/plants.html

If you get them from a pet store, they will likely be parasite free, but might have some snails and fertilizer residue. This isn't my area but during setup I would keep changing their water and filter media (especially carbon) frequently.

Here's instructions with three methods for dipping plants to eliminate snails

http://www.plantedaquariumscentral.com/ ... l_Dip.html

Then, there's this from a planted tank forum that doesn't go into details, but discusses the merits of some methods

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showt ... p?t=166695

I am very grateful to you for your help Steve and ljapa :roll:

This is what happens when you give the medicine to the RES:
http://www.snap.ee/user/MadlyLiisu/viimased_fotod#Untitled_01

Her revenge was sweet to me...and painful. As you can see there are also traces of claws...She tried to rip my skin off :lol:

Oh, I've got plenty of those scratches. Those feet are made to move great amounts of earth so she can safely lay her eggs. Our skin is no match.

Feeding and Nutrition :: I would like to grow my own (parasite free) food

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