I suppose you're right, but it depends on the turtle. Some will eat anything, others don't care.
Keeping fish with turtles?
- Thread starter ErikaHeartsTurtles
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Don't put the map with the cichlids. The water chemistry the cichlids require to do their best is similar to that of diamond back terrapins natural environment. Where as the map is a fresh water turtle. Also the cichlids are tropical where as the turtle is subtropical warm temperate.
Oh I almost forgot I keep fish with my Dbts but sense fish are not a major part of their natural diet they ignore them though I only have one mummichug left the others have died of old age they only live about two years or so.
Oh I almost forgot I keep fish with my Dbts but sense fish are not a major part of their natural diet they ignore them though I only have one mummichug left the others have died of old age they only live about two years or so.
Ah, i see. Didn't know that! Thanks.
Saloli said:
Not entirely accurate. Diamondback terrapins are true estuarine animals, requiring brackish water to survive. In other words, they need a salinity above freshwater but below seawater.
African fish from Lakes Malawai and Tanganyika, however, are not brackish water animals. Rather, the water in those lakes is very hard, i.e. there is a lot of calcium carbonate and other minerals dissolved in it, and the pH is basic (about 8.0). However, it is not brackish water.
Being from the southeastern United States, map turtles require water that is neutral to a little acidic (pH 6.5 - 7.0). So yes, the two groups do come from different water chemistries.
As for tropical vs. warm temperate, that is true. Tropical fish like those mbunas need temperatures between 72-82*F year round. In contrast, a map turtle will encounter temperatures in the 60s to 70s during the growing season, and sometimes even higher (high 80s). And of course, they then hibernate during the winter.
As I said, I would not mix these two groups because there are some significant differences in their requirements. But they are not insurmountable; people can keep neutral- to mildly acidic-water animals with harder-water animals with success. Rather, my major concern is that sooner or later, the map turtle could eat the fish.
ErikaHeartsTurtles said:GeoTerraTestudo said:ErikaHeartsTurtles said:
Yes, tell them that fish are very nutritious for turtles!
Sorry, don't mean to be flippant. I don't know how attached your folks are to their aquarium fish. But I think anybody mixing fish and turtles in an aquarium should realize that the turtle may benefit from the mix, albeit to the detriment of the fish.
My parents honestly don't care about my turtle. They only let me have it because I payed. Lol.
I'm thinking that if I wait a year maximum, then the cichlids will be too big for the turtle to eat. Nipping is a different story, but if I buy a few fish and put them in the tank with him, I can raise him to get used to it.
Your cichlids will never be to big for the turtle to eat. Remember the turtle will grow during that year as well. You could put them in there and they could live in harmony for month... then you wake up one morning and its a cichlid massacre. There is no way for you to justify this for your parents unless each of you resigns yourself to the fact that those fish are turtle food if the turtle decides it wants to eat them.
what if there were some very slow fish like gold fish so the turtle could munch thos n not the cichlids?
If you want to keep your turtle in your parents fish tank, which I don't recommend, you would have to clean the tank like crazy to stop it from getting nitrite and ammonia problems. Turtles create a lot more waste then fish. The tank I take care of with RES is almost always in desperate need of cleaning even though I do it every second day and it is home to a impressive filter.
zzzdanz said:
No rosy reds either. Please read this link - http://www.tortoiseforum.org/Thread-The-dangers-of-using-Goldfish-and-Rosy-Red-minnows-as-feeders
I would not keep fish with a map turtle - if I wanted to keep the fish, that is.
That said, I have a Stinkpot that lives with a blue gourami and a pair of bristlenose plecos. They have been together for years - the bristlenose have even raised babies. My Reeves lives with a handful of meteor or white cloud minnows. He has never eaten a single one.
Not all turtles will expend the necessary energy to eat fish. But many will. Bottom line - if you want to be sure to keep the fish, keep them separate from the turtles.
Not to beat the dead horse, but I also advise not putting the turtle in with the fish.
1.) Most aquatic turtles are at least partially carnivorous and all of them are opportunistic. He may not go after them today or tomorrow, but the situation would only be a ticking timebomb until one day you will come home to find, as someone else stated, fish spines. You are tempting fate.
2.) The tank is a 55-gallon, which is IMHO, a poor choice for housing turtles because of its narrow shape (only 12").
3.) Aside from the issue of whether or not he'll eat the fish, you would have to do some reconfiguring of the tank to allow for some basking platform. Time + effort + money. Plus, your parents may not be thrilled with this.
4.) Speaking of parents, I believed you've implied that they really do not want this to happen. Since you are living under their roof, it behooves you to respect their wishes of what lives or doesn't live in THEIR aquarium, even if you don't agree. I certainly don't think you should try to stick the turtle in there behind their back to "see what happens" because he may end up chomping one, and then you'll have to explain that to mom and dad.
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Save up a little money, go out and buy a tub from somewhere. Might be around $20 or so. I know, you may have to skip going to a couple movies, or eating out, but what's really important here.
1.) Most aquatic turtles are at least partially carnivorous and all of them are opportunistic. He may not go after them today or tomorrow, but the situation would only be a ticking timebomb until one day you will come home to find, as someone else stated, fish spines. You are tempting fate.
2.) The tank is a 55-gallon, which is IMHO, a poor choice for housing turtles because of its narrow shape (only 12").
3.) Aside from the issue of whether or not he'll eat the fish, you would have to do some reconfiguring of the tank to allow for some basking platform. Time + effort + money. Plus, your parents may not be thrilled with this.
4.) Speaking of parents, I believed you've implied that they really do not want this to happen. Since you are living under their roof, it behooves you to respect their wishes of what lives or doesn't live in THEIR aquarium, even if you don't agree. I certainly don't think you should try to stick the turtle in there behind their back to "see what happens" because he may end up chomping one, and then you'll have to explain that to mom and dad.
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Save up a little money, go out and buy a tub from somewhere. Might be around $20 or so. I know, you may have to skip going to a couple movies, or eating out, but what's really important here.
I can't believe this is still being discussed, to me it sounds like her parents said no already. If we are discussing is it a good idea or not just for the sake of discussing something, than I say it's ok as long as like others said you don't care about the fish, as soon as you care about the fish, that turtle will nip a tail off one of them.
Now see my Mollies I don't care about at all and they have bred and now I have like 20 swimming around eating and getting bigger, and the two turtles pay them no mind, now if I cared they'd all be food, that is just the way it works....LOL
As far as the correct environmental parameters, ahh, there's usually a grey area that meets the needs of everyone and fish and turtles have an amazing ability to adapt.
Oh and it's a nice tank, when they get tired of cichlids than you should talk them into some turtles
Now see my Mollies I don't care about at all and they have bred and now I have like 20 swimming around eating and getting bigger, and the two turtles pay them no mind, now if I cared they'd all be food, that is just the way it works....LOL
As far as the correct environmental parameters, ahh, there's usually a grey area that meets the needs of everyone and fish and turtles have an amazing ability to adapt.
Oh and it's a nice tank, when they get tired of cichlids than you should talk them into some turtles
ripper7777777 said:
Well...in terms of pure economics, her parents keep African cichlids. Some of those fish can be priced upwards of $10 or more. I'd be a little more upset if a turtle took a bite out of my $10 fish than if he decided to eat one of my $2 fish (which mollies breed like crazy anyway, I can always make more!). Just another perspective...
We spent $3.99 on the fish. Thanks guys.. What i hate about the internet is that i cant tell if people are being rude or not.. Lol. Im new to keeping turtles, so I'm trying to figure out what's best for him. 10gallon tank versus a 55 gallon tank. I'll buy a large plastic bin from Home Depot for him soon. Thanks, guy. I appreciate all the info.
Thanks guys.. What i hate about the internet is that i cant tell if people are being rude or not.. Lol. Im new to keeping turtles, so I'm trying to figure out what's best for him. 10gallon tank versus a 55 gallon tank. I'll buy a large plastic bin from Home Depot for him soon. Thanks, guy. I appreciate all the info. 
I use to put little feeder fish in with my sliders, they will usually eat 2-3 and then they leave them alone for a week they do this till they are all gone so don't spend to much in fish
StudentoftheReptile said:
I agree 100%, like I said if I cared about the Mollies they'd already have been eaten, I'm sure if I went out and got a puffer or really nice cichlid or any other fish and put it in there as a keeper they'd eat him alive.
ErikaHeartsTurtles said:We spent $3.99 on the fish.
Yea, sarcasm gets lost. It's kinda more than what's good for the turtle, but what's good for the fish also. If it was my tank and I had the fish and got the turtle I'd put the turtle in it, but if it got aggressive to the fish than I'd get rid of the fish, but that's me, your parents may like the fish better than a turtle tank. I have raised plenty of cichilds, dempseys pacus and oscars and truthfully I find the turtle tanks more enjoyable, but I know people that would completely disagree. So really it's up to your parents in the end to take the risk or not.
You are completely right.
i am aware that lake malawi is not true brackish because the is no direct connection to the ocean though there are also a lot of sodium compounds in the lake including NCl. Any way the different rivers have similar thought not the same chemistry in the se US. The ones that drain into the Chesapeake bay range from 6.0-9.0 which is a huge range though not typical for the region as a whole.
ripper7777777 said:
Not sure if you were just typing quickly or not, but pacus are not cichlids, they are characids (like neons and piranhas), so their behavior is quite different, and they get much bigger.
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