Baby yb sliders and minnow

padolicious

I have had two small baby Yellow Bellied Sliders about a month now and they are doing great. Today I caught three minnow in a river flowing through the town I live in. I know people have have different opinions on whether fish should be kept with turtles and I also know now that one day one of the turtles might be feeling peckish and decide to eat a minnow but do you think I should have them living together? Thanks for any replies.

jen_23

Hi padolicious,

It's really down to personal choice if you want to put fish into the turtle tank.
I know alot of ppl who used to keep mollys and guppys hoping they would end up turt food

Anyway there are only 2 problems you need to consider.
1. you would need to quarantine the minnow you caught for a week or so.
It's prob more dangerous to the turts that you caught them yourself as most pet shops would have the fish pre-quaratined. It's just to ensure they don't have any disease which can wipe out the turts .
Some info here on quarantining http://faq.thekrib.com/disease-fw.html

2. Minnow are cold water fish correct?
Your'e turtle tank should be heated so you will be introducing cold water fish into a heated tank.
It can be done though. I know plenty of pl who keep goldfish in their turt tanks. You just need to be careful not to shock them.
Put them in a bag with water from their quarantine tank, tie it as they would in a pet shop. And literally let the bag sit on the tank equilibriating for an hour or so.
If you dumped them straight into the heated tank they would go into shock and most likely die.

chances are your turts will eat them but 1 may survive. I have heard of someone before who kept some sort of tropical fish in the tank with teh turts for several years happily until one day the turt must have gotten into a humour and ate it

But you can always keep replacing them. Just always always quaratine first

padolicious

Thanks