Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have two baby DBT's, about 1.5in or so, 13 weeks old. They are in a 55 gallon aquarium and will be until they are abour 4-5in then they will move to bigger. My question is, if I get a large tiger oscar, or jack dempsey, (3.5in range) that is already bigger than the babies significantly and will stay bigger based on growth rate, will they all coexist until I move the turtles when they are 4in or so? I care about the turtles, fish are cheap, mostly decoration, will the fish ever hurt the turtle, or is it just that the fish may die? I have one placastamas in there now for cleaning purposes in the 2.5in range and the turtles don't seem to care, and the one time one of the turtles did get a little curious, as soon as the fish swam away it got frightened off as well. I have heard never to add, fish, but then I hear of people that have no problems as long as they grow up together, and I'm wondering if a measly 5 dollar fish might possibly liven up the aquarium.

I have the same scenario. I think Im going to take my DBT's out of the big aquarium until theyre a little bigger (above 2 inches) and stronger. Then theyll be able to swim in water that deep and with fish that are more powerful. They also get caught in the filters water stream and have a really hard time getting out of it. Im going to put them in a 10 gallon with only 3-4 inch of water for a few months.

I have left mine alone now with 4 small algae eaters, two loaches, a blood parrot and a ceverum. All in the 55gal with the fluval FX5. A few things to make the water less turbulent would be to put the output and inputs at the bottom of the tank with the filter intake module covered 75% with large(1-3in) rocks. THis keeps current at bottom and redirects it into the rocks. My little guys swim all over the tank now and they are strong little swimmers at that. I have witnessed them swim down till they were pressed against the intake ( which is mostly covered in rocks) then swim right back up. The fish don't mess with the turtles because of the species. (blood parrot no teeth/ceverum very shy and quick/algaes too small/loaches too small) and because they have been together now for a while, the turtles swim with the fish, climb on them etc, I have even tried getting the turtle to attack a fish but for now they have no interest. I'm even pretty sure that the blood parrot acts like a guardian, protecting the little turts from any curiosity displayed by the other fish. My only problem is they like each others food, if I try giving turtles shrimp snack the fish try to get up and eat it, when I feed fish the turtles try to eat it. I've had to move my main feeding to a second bowl option, I just fill a 6in pyrex bowl with tank water and in turn put the turtles in to eat their food, this revents the fish from eating their main staple. My little guys are growing fast, they are already twice the size as when I got them, and they swim like crazy. Remember that if you raise them in a little rough water, they will become better swimmers/stronger. I also leave my topfin 60 rim filter running which waterfalls very turbulent water on one side of the tank, they used to hate it, now it doesn't even phase them, and they actually use the waterfall turbulence as a sort of slide or ride.

I feed my turtles on the dock so the fish cant get to it. Put it up there and sprinkle some water on it to make it soggy.