Pet Turtle : Aquatic Plant Food

In this section we will discuss basically about live creatures that can serve as food for your turtle. This includes - feeder fish (goldfish & guppies), earthworms, mealworms, mosquito larvae, crickets, cockroaches, snails. You can either keep these along with your turtle in its habitat or culture them separately to give during feeding times.

For more details on how to culture live food, click here

The primary source is 'feeder fish'. Feeder fish are generally 'guppies' or 'small goldfish'. Like we said earlier, they can either be introduced into the tank or reared separately.

The benefits of providing live food are immense:
� The bones/shells provide extra calcium. In case you are culturing your own you can boost their
     calcium and vitamin content by dosing the food you give them with calcium powder and some
     vitamins!
� Another key benefit of providing live food - especially fishes is exercise! Your turtle WILL chase
     these fishes and burn some calories� thus reducing chances of obesity
� And last but not the least, you and the turtle will both get some entertainment!

When keeping fish make sure you don't introduce too many. 4-8 fishes in a medium sized tank at any point of time are more than enough. Make sure you provide enough vegetation cover or 'turtle-proof' corners� or they will be eaten too soon!

In case you are introducing live feed into the habitat, keep a careful check on their number, and reduce the turtles' regular diet if it has consumed more of the live food.

Other live food that is popularly given includes - snails, earthworms, mosquito larvae, crickets & cockroaches. While these can be cultured, we don't know too many who are culturing crickets and cockroaches. On the other hand snails and earthworms like fishes are relatively easy to culture. Infact you can buy snails and introduce them into you habitat just like 'feeder fish'.

Mosquito Larvae and Earthworms should be given a quick rinse before they are given as food. For younger turtles you might need to chop up the earthworms into small pieces.

Wild Prey
Quite often one is tempted to catch some live prey and feed to the turtle. This is a strict NO, because:
� Not all prey is safe to eat
� Live prey might harbor parasites that are alien to your turtle, and it might get infected
� Live feed might be contaminated with toxins, herbicides, etc.

So avoid feeding, wild prey to your turtles. You can do so only if you disinfect them, but that would again take care of only the surface parasites/chemicals.