I realized that I may be throwing away good tort food all the time out of my aquariums.
In particular I was interested in Water Lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) and Red Tiger Lotus (Nymphaea zenkeri). These both grow like weeds, and rapidly consume the nutrients in the water, turning hard water soft, ie may likely have alot of calcium in them.
In trying to do a little digging on them, I discovered both have been considered as crops for human consumption, and do indeed have high quantities of calcium, though the bio-availability of it was in question, due to oxylates and phytates. Most of the studies were over my head.
In doing a little digging here on the forums I saw that water lettuce is commonly fed to aquatic turtles, and in a thread Crazy1 stated that they feed torts water lettuce. I found no reference to tiger lotus.
Anybody have any further input? I will probably go ahead and trial small quantities at this point, in the concept that variety is good. I'm not talking about making these high quantity staples at this time.
In particular I was interested in Water Lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) and Red Tiger Lotus (Nymphaea zenkeri). These both grow like weeds, and rapidly consume the nutrients in the water, turning hard water soft, ie may likely have alot of calcium in them.
In trying to do a little digging on them, I discovered both have been considered as crops for human consumption, and do indeed have high quantities of calcium, though the bio-availability of it was in question, due to oxylates and phytates. Most of the studies were over my head.
In doing a little digging here on the forums I saw that water lettuce is commonly fed to aquatic turtles, and in a thread Crazy1 stated that they feed torts water lettuce. I found no reference to tiger lotus.
Anybody have any further input? I will probably go ahead and trial small quantities at this point, in the concept that variety is good. I'm not talking about making these high quantity staples at this time.