feeding baby turtle?

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Gearhead

Candiru
MFK Member
Jul 19, 2008
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o.k. so my friend brought me this turtle from his fishing tournament. This thing is tiny, like just hatched today, tiny. It's about the size of a nickle. I need some help on what to feed this thing, it's an eastern painted turtle. I have an adult of the same species but I dont want put them together because i'm afraid he'll eat the baby. Give me any info you can on careing for baby turtles like food, temperature, filtration, ect.
 
it's very easy. you can basically put it in a small container, add an inch or so of clean water. put a small rock for a basking area.

you can start by feeding small worms such as black worms, but there are commercially available baby turtle foods out there.

chopped up fish or shrimp is also eaten, baby turtle's aren't fussy.

change the water daily and you're good to go.

once the turtle gets a little bigger, you can upgrade from the container to a proper tank with filtration, lighting, and such.
 
Food....reptomin 'baby', bloodworms, brine shrimp got my little one started.

Housing...when mine was that small i kept in a 10g with an inch or two of water with driftwood/rocks that it would easily get up on. Didn't filter it, just 100% water changes as needed.
 
He won't eat guppy fry or broken up pellets.
 
I agree, zoo med hatchling. Babies are usually more willing to start taking pellets than wild-caught adults, he should take the pellets pretty quickly.
 
bass_cats;3055667; said:
He won't eat guppy fry or broken up pellets.
Pelets arent apealing and fry isnt suitable. Good foods for very small turtles include bloodworms, mosquito larvae and brine shrimp. If its really small it will take some time before becoming a regular eater, you will need alot of pacience. Also I recomend increasing a bit the water level to about 2 times the length of the shell (a bit more if he swims ok) and putting some cheap aquatic plants like anacharis wich baby turts love to use as resting places. Also dont forget that at this early age he is very needed of uv ligth specialy because it isnt eating stuff with vit D3 in it, a good one is zoomeds reptisun 5.0 ;)
 
i got my painted at that size, he may still be to nervous to eat, just give him some time
 
He started to eat the pellets after a while. The guppy fry are mostly in there to help eat some left overs as turtles are the messiest eaters in the world.
 
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