I don't use any rocks in my mud tank, I don't use any thing in my painted tank either. If the gravel is small they can swallow it & become impacted. If you really need something on the bottom then large river rock is best. Anything that they can't swallow.

As for food, I breed lobster & hissing cockroaches, my mud loves them. He eats crickets, grub worms, June beetles (in season)earthworms, night crawlers. Mealworms for treats.
He loves live fish, you can also use frozen fish foods (but thaw them for the turtles) even better if your local tropical fish store sells them live, things like bloodworms, brine shrimp, tubifex worms.
I feed mine some pellet food but not a lot because he got sick in 1997 & the vets concluded that part of his problem had to do with too much pellet food & not enough fresh live foods so now I rotate his foods. He never gets the same food 2 feedings in a row, he gets pellets once a week or once every 2 weeks.
Their nutritional needs haven't been scientifically studied like dog/cat nutrition has so feeding them foods similar to what they'd eat in the wild seems best. Mine got over his illness & hasn't been sick again since.
Variety, variety, variety seems to be the key.

PHRatz

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