Feeding and Nutrition :: Fat turtle eats raft

[lmyu2007]

Hi all. I'm kind of at my wit's end here. One of my turtles is extremely greedy and eats everything I put into the tank. He's gotten much larger than his tankmate over the summer and he's bulging quite a bit. I've been trying to get him to eat lettuce and other fillers that don't have calories, but he's refusing quite happily.

So here's the odd thing: I have a ZooMed raft in the tank and he somehow got into the habit of biting/eating the raft. So when I don't feed him, I come back to see the tank littered with tiny styrofoam bits that he's bitten off the raft.

Any one have any suggestions for what to do in this case? I'd like to decrease his diet, but I'd also like to have a raft during this dieting process...

Thanks!

[steve]

Some if not most RES can be quite aggressive when it comes to eating. You should feed them separately since he easily out-competes the other. It'll be easier to take the one you're not feeding out and placed into a dry box (ideally tall enough so they can't climb over or tip over and on the floor).

As for the raft (do you mean dock?) -- you can go 2 routes. A all-natural one (like cork-bark) or an indestructible one (like a tile/pvc platform).

[marisa]

Put a piece of cuttlebone in the tank (take off the hard backing) and see if he'll prefer chomping on that (it will give him some extra calcium).

[Ranger The Red Ear Slider]

My RES does the same thing. With him the only way out is replacing it.

[reteP]

Lol, i just bought a ZooMed floating Dock, and I hope he doesn't bite the dock...

[gdesigner]

@reteP I think all you have to worry about with the smaller turtles, like 3-4 inch is them getting too big and sinking the zoo med dock. My turtle is 3.5 inch and bites, but has never successfully penetrated the dock(yet), lol.

[aprillizzybeth]

My turtle bites his ZooMed dock too. He just started doing this about 3-4 months ago. I don't know if he's actually eating any- since the pieces are floating in the tank- not missing entirely. Does anyone know if this will be harmful to the turtle if he is, in fact, swallowing any pieces?

[steve]

I think the general feeling is that small amounts are not harmful as long as they pass. If your turtle won't stop nibbling at it, then you need to get a different type of basking area.