The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 28, Number 3; March, 2001

Turtles And Fish Together?

By Dave and Elliot Stahl

Reprinted from The Monitor, the Newsletter of the Hoosier Herpetological Society, Vol.12, No.2, February 2001.

Dad likes fish. Elliot likes turtles. Both fish and turtles are kept in aquariums, and aquariums are not cheap. How do we divide up our limited aquarium resources? Actually we have come up with some workable compromises on several occasions. Of course many turtles will happily dine on fish, so the trick is to keep the two together and keep the fish alive. This article is about setups we have made that have managed to do that.

The size of the fish, compared to the size of the turtle seems to be important. We had a 55 gallon aquarium that contained several large sunfish, and two large bullhead catfish. We had a seven inch red eared slider taking up a twenty gallon aquarium, and an equally large asian box turtle ( an aquatic species) taking up another twenty gallon aquarium. We combined them all into the 55 gallon tank and freed up the two twenty gallon tanks for other things. We modified the 55 gallon tank by lowering the water level a little, and building a basking island at one end out of a large upside down flower pot setting on top of some bricks to bring it slightly above water level. After putting a bulb designed to give reptiles the wavelengths of light they need into the hood, we had a setup that worked well for both. The large fish, and the turtles both happily dined on fish pellets (the ones designed for goldfish have the right amount of protein in them for good turtle nutrition). We never once saw a turtle try to dine on one of the fish, nor did the fish ever have any nipped fins.

We next tried placing two very small red eared sliders in a 33 gallon tank that contained many small tropical fish. The fish were swordtails, platies, limias, white cloud minnows, and several other types of small fish. Once again we lowered the water level a few inches and placed in two pieces of driftwood that had parts of them sticking above water level for the turtles to bask on. The aquarium hood had two light fixtures on it, so we placed a reptile type bulb in one of them. This tank had a lot of live plants growing in it. Not only did the fish survive in the presence of the turtles, but several of the livebearers had young that survived to maturity. The sliders gobbled up fish food ( the regular flake-kind) and never seemed to bother the fish.

A third tank that has worked quite well is a ten gallon tank containing a stinkpot turtle, one small bluegill, two minnows, and three crayfish. This tank has a basking area built up of rocks, and many other rocks, plastic plants, and wood for hiding places. Last summer when we set the tank up, it had three sculpin fish in it. The sculpins have disappeared. Elliot thinks the stinkpot ate them; dad thinks the crayfish did them in. The stinkpot has never been observed to eat anything but live earthworms, and ignores the fish flakes and pellets placed in the tank for the fish to eat. In summary, if you would like to keep fish and turtles together it can be done if you take a few things into consideration. First, try to match the sizes of fish and turtles so the turtles do not see the fish as a tasty tidbit. Secondly, keep the turtles well fed, and provide them with a chance to bask and get appropriate lighting. Finally give the choice of turtle species some thought, we would not recommend snapper for this project. We have enjoyed experimenting with these turtle/fish habitats, and the turtles have always seemed to enjoy these aquaria, possibly because they afford deeper water for swimming than they often get in turtle only tanks.