Baby red eared sliders eat minnows?

Question

I have 2 red eared baby sliders and they are about 4 inches from head to tail. We went to petco and got them some rosy red minnows to eat and see how they like them and they havent even touched they yet. It appears that they dont even notice them. Is there something wrong with my turtles. I have a male and a female i dont know if that helps. Thanks

Answer 1

They are carnivores, but some have different oppinions on food. Try worms, possibly other minnow breeds, and other small fish and baitfish.

Answer 2

Nothing is wrong with your turtles. Keep in mind that your sliders were most likely caught in the wild when they just hatched and sold in a pet store. They are not been in the wild and are not used to eating live foods so that is most likely the reason why they are ignoring the minnows. If the minnows are in the tank for a while, they'll die anyways and your turtles will probably eat it. Also, if your turtles are not afraid of you and you want to speed up the process, you can try to hold a minnow in the air and let them eat it so they can acquire a taste for live foods. After that, they should understand that the minnows are food and go after them on their own. Also, as a side note...live foods are good as they provide things that dried foods do not. But, live foods are fatty and may cause problems for your turtles health so don't feed them too much :)

Answer 3

NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT there is deffinetly nothing wrong with your two turtles you said they are 4'' head to tail so that means that they are most likely just not going to eat minnows yet because they are too small. If their SHELL LENGTH not head to tail just the shell was 4.5'' then id say that they should be eating minnows, but know their are just fine, or icould just be that they don't like the minnows, or the minnows could always be 'hiding' from the turtles, Hope I Helped, Good Luck

Answer 4

When I got my baby, it was about the same size as yours. I put it 2 minnows and it just igorned them as well. After my turtle got bigger months later, he got a little bit more aggressive. When I put in goldfish he started chasing them, caught them, and ate them. Goldfish are bigger than minnows so I was surprised that he went for them. But I put in this certain goldfish and he showed no interest in it at all. They would swim next to each other and eat together and never ate the fish. It was almost like they were friends. Well anyways... I would just give your turtles some time to get bigger and try different kinds of fish. Don't give up... keep trying. Good luck though.

Answer 5

Your turtles are fine, your fish are too big.

Turtles, like most other predators, select prey by size. This is even more important if the predator does not have real 'hands' to hold prey with.

Baby turtles eat SMALL prey. Get smaller fish, but even better would be small feeder shrimp, frozen/thawed krill, blood worms, other small worms, and some good turtle pellets.

Try this for more ideas: http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/care.htm

Answer 6

well, the fish was new to them. it will take time to know that the fish is food. few weeks ago, i feed my turtles crickets. and when i first gave it to them, they were like wth!...they would ignored it. but they eventually ate it. hehe. so just keep showing your turtles the fish, and they will eventually eat them.

Answer 7

Can? Yes. Will? Maybe not.

Answer 8

they are carnivores, don't put it with fishes that you like.

Answer 9

they will probly like goldfish...ours do..