So, I’ve posted the early parts of this story years ago, but I’m curious how weird my story is.
Tobie has lived with fish her whole life. She doesn’t chase them. She doesn’t try to eat them, at least intentionally, unless they die. Currently, she lives in a 150 gallon tank with about 9 black neon tetras, nearly 20 zebra danios, and one black molly.
I know the danios have bred because I fished one out of the overflow and had two make it through the overflow and into the refugium. I let them all grow big enough to be safe and put them in the main tank. The danios and the molly will swim right in front of Tobie with no fear. Tobie ignores them.
I have twice seen danios eaten, but both were accidental. Feeding time is in the morning. Tobie gets some Omega One pellets. Then the fish get flakes. Finally I dump some Omega One sinking shrimp pellets in. Tobie really likes searching the bottom for them, and I figure that’s some extra mental stimulation. The danios and the Molly are over biting at floating pellets even before the flakes arrive, and once the flakes show, they aren’t afraid of Tobie.
The two accidents were danios going for food that got in the way of Tobie going for a pellet and got swallowed. I’ve always been amazed that this hasn’t made her associate them as food or that none of the other danios seem to have learned not to get between Tobie and food. When Tobie is looking for a pellet to target, she’ll generally defer to the fish and look elsewhere. Both accidents were when she had committed to her lunge and a fish swam in.
Tobie is a 7 year old female RES that was caught from a pond by my 12 year old son and his friend in July 2012, the day after my son had been asking if he could have a pet X, where X was a long list of animals to which my wife replied, “No.” Turtle was the first thing to get a yes, after things like even a hamster got a no.
I’m pretty sure this attitude toward fish developed because as soon as we got the 20 gallon long “turtle” kit set up, my son wanted fish. We got three black neon tetras because they were cheap. They were longer than Tobie. Side note: black neons are hardy fish. I didn’t know what I was doing, and all three of those fish lived through an aquarium cycle and went on to live for 1-3 years more.
The 3 black neons graduated with Tobie a few months later to a 55 gallon. We added a few more black neons and tried some regular neon tetras. I never saw those eaten, but their numbers were often smaller each morning and we never added them again.
When we upgraded to the 150 gallon, we added the danios and some mollies.
Over the years, I’ve put glass shrimp in and those are definitely prey. Cherry shrimp are too, but there’s quite a few basically transparent ones living in the main tank that aren’t chased. (The refugium is a 55 gallon on the floor set off into three chambers of media, a sand bed with plants, and a return pump. The return pump is protected with filter media, but occasionally shrimp get past and make it up through the pump to the main tank).
After my third canister filter failure, the refugium has become my only filter.
Well, this rambled on longer than I intended.
I’m curious if anyone else has a turtle living peacefully with fish?
