Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have an eastern painted and red-eared slider in the same tank. I have noticed several differences.

It's a little difficult to tell, but I think if I fed them both til they were full, the slider would eat far more per unit weight. Plus, comparing sliders to painteds, it seems the latter is is closer to carnivore and former is closer to omnivore (the slider eats dry dog food readily, but the painted, even if I chop the bits into small pieces, since he is smaller, just doesn't seema as into the dog food), and a slider is far more likely to eat a dead minnow tossed in the tank.

Anyone else notice these differences?

I have a western painted & a yellow mud, no slider but I am aware that painteds are more carnivorous than sliders & muds are even more carnivorous than painted.
I never use dog food, I have before in a recipe but I stopped using it.. so instead they eat a wide variety of bugs & fish.
Sliders should love to eat ancharis the plant sold for fish aquariums.. that'd be a good plant to try for the painted too.
I hide plant matter in other foods otherwise my painted won't eat any. The mud surely won't.
You can also try floating a turnip green in the water & let them nibble on it as they please.
But yes the sliders tend to go for plants more often than painteds will.
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PHRatz

You may want to consider not using dry dog food or dry cat food, unless you use a very very high quality food there's all sorts of nasty stuff in it. Such as BHA/BHT preservatives, these are banned in some countries and not really consider human safe here. I have no idea what the long term use in reptiles would be but studies have shown liver and kidney problems in test animals.
Also some homemade insect food recipes call for dry pet food, considering that it would be eaten by worms or crickets over time, building up in it's body, the amount later ingested by the reptile might be rather high.

Try a quick search for BHA and BHT yourself.

(Sidenote to dog and cat owners, those two preservatives are also considered "cheap"preservatives, yet brands like Science Diet use them.)

I always keep Ancharis (oxygenating pond plants) in my slider tanks, and also duckweek, fairy moss, and water meal, and water hyacinth. They love them all. When the fall comes, I take as much in as I can from my koi pond, and keep the plants in sunny spots near the sliding doors, so I have some for the sliders. The E. painted's will eat them too.
I also keep a little in the hatchlings tank. The baby Eastern loves the duckweek and the Ancharis. I see him picking at them all the time.
Terry