Feeding and Nutrition :: Fish for Food

[SabrinaF]

Ok so we put feeder mollies in Mikey's tank. We know that he will eat them but with turtles always begging, will he overeat on them?

[worldpeace]

He can. If he's greedy like most turtles then he will probably finish them in a few days. Just make sure that you don't give him anything else to eat if you see that he eats the fish. And after the fish are gone, go easy on the pellets for a few days; you can even fast him.

[SabrinaF]

Thanks world! I hope he's not to much of a pig. We're hoping to breed them in the tank

[TheComputerGremlin]

If you are planning on breeding, you may want to maintain a separate 10-20 gallon tank for the fish. It is difficult for them to last that long with the turtles!

My rule is that you can give 1 rosie red minnow per inch of shell, so a 6" turtle could get up to 6 fish. That is dependent on the fish, but the ones that I was getting before were very very tiny. Best to use your discretion. You never want to give more than that number or more often than once a month. We had one person buy a dozen rosie reds for their turtle thinking that it would take over a week to eat them (and a dozen was far too many since it was a smaller maybe 3-4" turtle) and they were gobbled up in a few minutes, and then the turtle threw them back up. Not good!