Okay, I have two turtle tanks. One tank houses two 5 inch RES, and the other houses one 8 inch RES. My 8 inch turtle, Sadie, has a dramatically different diet from the two 5 inch turtles, Hurricane and Typhoon.
Everyday, Sadie gets one or two live jumbo mealworms (sometimes called "megaworms") plus varying amounts of dried krill and shrimp. She absolutely hates lettuce, blueberries, strawberries, carrots, and anything not protein related so we give her tons of cuttlebone. We've done this for quite a few months now, and, she has no pyramiding of any kind. (There was some she got with her previous owner, and it has not increased at all).
Now, Hurricane and Typhoon have a diet which is primarily pellet based with the occasional protein snack. We have tried Reptomin, Rep-Cal, Flukers, some sort of cutesy ultra healthy pellet blend, and some cheap stuff, and, all of those foods have given them pyramiding. I have reduced them to 3 pellets each, and I hand feed them to make sure they get the same amount. But they still get pyramiding. And they also get plenty of cuttlebone. I have a working heat source, it's definitely warm enough for them to metabolize everything because they shedding normally. I'd feed them every other day but the problem is, they both get the same amount of food and both are having the same problems.
So, I'm just curious, I know that a lot of you hear discourage protein based diets. When I had Hurricane and Typhoon on a shrimp and krill diet when they were little, they never got pyramiding. This started after we started the pellets. I want to know if anyone else here gives their turtles protein mostly, and if those turtles have pyramiding or not. And I want to know how people's turtle's are doing with their pyramiding in relation to the pellets.
It's frustrating because I have tons of pellets right now that I spent all this money on because I thought they would be good for all of my turtles, and I am starting to think that they aren't.
