General Care Discussion :: spotsmama

[vincentapa]

the setup is a 75 gallon fish tank with two floating docks beside eachother with the uvb and uva lights overthem. i have on heater thats keeping the temp at about 76 to 78 f andi have about 9 cichlids in my tank. the turtles are only baby turtles and im feeding them turtle pellets and shirmp that i bought? forgot that i have two huge filters won each side which filter the water very good..

[VanishingReality]

Shrimp is not a daily food. And eventually your turt will eat those cichlids.

[SpotsMama]

Is the heater you mentioned a water heater? If the water temp (not the basking platform temp) is 76 to 78, then that's right on target for a baby turtle.

Have you seen these guidelines on turtle nuitrition? There is a lot of good info on here:

http://www.redearslider.com/index_nutrition.html

On the cichlids - aren't those pretty aggressive fish? Do your turtles have to compete with them for pellets? My minnows really go after the turtle pellets when I feed Spot but he's a lot bigger than they are and he always gets the pellets he's supposed to. If he were very small, though, and the fish were bigger, then I think he might not be able compete. And Vanishing is right - one of these days your turtles will start seeing the cichlids as food.

How's your sick turtle doing today? Have you found a good herp vet to see him?

[taylor_a]

It's recommended that you keep cichlids ONLY with other cichlids, because they are so aggressive.

[meltedspork]

I would not recommend keeping cichlids with a turtle. They are very aggressive fish. And depending on what kind/size of cichlids you have, they could possible harm your baby turtles. I know I used to have 2 oscars (a type of cichlid) and they would have killed 2 baby turtles easily.