turtle in community tank

[greatalbu]

Hello all,
anyone have any info on having a turtle in a community tank?
A dwarf?
A vegetarian?

[YaYgoldFish]

Almost all turtles get big, will eat your fish, and should only be kept with other turtles.

[dev]

It is illegal to keep turtles in Norway, so my experience with them is limited.

Still, from what little I do know, I would not reccomend keeping turtles in a community tank.

[YaYgoldFish]

You could always have dwarf frogs? OR if your tank is big and still empty ( atleast 20g+) you could get a nice RES. You can see mine in the other species part of the forum.

[genitor]

Yeah Turtles will eat your fish.

[rollie]

turtles eat fish and are very messly. lol

[troy]

No matter what your turtle going to kill and eat your fish eventually in your community tank.

[Nick_Pavlovski]

If you really want to mix them, the fish will need to be constantly moving and really quick, at that. Their fins should not be long and flowing - basically, if the fish looks like a torpedo, it may not be caught and eaten.

I had a few mosquito fish in with my tortoise, but it was only temporary.

But as most people here have said, the turtle or tortoise is still going to try to eat them if it gets the opportunity.

[Fishguy2727]

Tortoises are terrestrial.

[octopus44]

I think it largely depends on the personality of the individual turtle and also the kind of fish you keep.

I have a RES who has been living peacefully with 7 tiger barbs and a CAE for quite while now. I have tried other fish but they were eaten.

When I first put in the tiger barbs they where young and therefor small and could fit into small spaces. The key is to provide lots of crevices and small areas for the fish to escape to and they may survive. Also get a fairly large school of fish. This makes it harder for the turtle to focus on one to catch. I think that tiger barbs are ideal because they are very quick and also rather aggressive. Now that my turtle has tried so many time to catch them and failed he has for the most part given up except for the occasional chase (which is a healthy exercise for the turtle).

My turtle will even stick his feet for a barb to clean off. It's pretty cool, there is only one fish that does this and my turtle looks very relaxed when he's getting his feet cleaned.

I think it's worth giving it a shot. The worst that could happen is your turtle gets an expensive treat.

[salman]

I had turtles to my tetra tank. The day later i traveled. When i came back, the only things left were the 4 turtles. :(

[monkeyman1018]

Yea, I put about a dozen goldfish in a tank with my turtle thinking he wouldn't eat them. WRONG. They were all gone in 3 days. Tank got very messy. lol . Definitely keep them separate...

[hoihoi8]

I've had 2 RES so far. My childhood RES shared a tanks with 4 guppies I caught in the creek. They were never eaten (probably because the turtle was to slow to catch them) and he only ate sticks of food.

My second RES was a fish eating machine. He would eat goldfish all the time, and I used them as a 2ndary food source.

[KcEE]

I think turtles are best kept in ponds with bigger fish such as Koi.