weird RES behavior with fish - Paw Talk

chesaki · #1 10-29-2007, 09:10 AM

Hi, I'm new to this forum thing so be patient with me please...
My fiance and I have had our RES since June, and we got him / her when he/she was probably 3-inches across. We put some goldfish in the tank and he/she wouldn't eat any of them. they grew. big. we figured they were new friends and would just live together. 4 mo. later we upgraded to a larger tank, and suddenly in one day, he/she hunted 8 LARGE goldfish and ate them all! Is that normal? Also, I say "he/she" because when we got it, we were promised that it was a girl, but recently we've been flashed a big black thing coming out of its butt area a few times, and everything i read tells me its a penis?

thanks!
Chesa

SnakeMan · #2 10-29-2007, 11:41 AM

What does the RES stand for?

luvnature · #3 10-29-2007, 12:16 PM

I dont know a thing about turtles except that they are cute!

I will just help by bumping this to the top again.

Angelnstuff · #4 10-29-2007, 12:20 PM

hmm.. maybe it "learned to hunt" maybe it caught one and thought hey i never knew i could eat these annoying buggers, so it gobbled them all down?

ive no idea since ive never had a turtle.. but i bet me must have some kinda tummy ache after eating so much

Leo · #5 10-29-2007, 01:48 PM

I would think it is NORMAL for any turtle to eat fish if they are in the same enclosure with him.... I had some tiny little aquatic albino frogs once... the fish store swore up and down to me that they would not eat the other fish in my tank... well I went to work one day, and when I came home ALL of my fish were gone and the frogs were HUGE (the fish were about 3 times the size of the frogs and they were either partially dismembered or just plain gone)!!! Moral of that story being... just because the fish were HUGE doesn't mean that a smaller predator won't eat them .....Turtles and Frogs will eat fish if given the chance. In the wild they will eat fish... so why wouldn't they in captivity?

Just a little warning about any future tank mates for him, I would be careful where you get your fish from and I would recommend against buying feeders as they are normally not treated that great and can carry disease that could be transmitted to your RES...it would also be wise to quarantine anything that you plan on adding into the tank.

As for if it is a boy or girl... does it really matter either way?

Pictures????

**Dragonrain** · #6 10-29-2007, 04:11 PM

I have a kind of similar story!

My sister use to have a RES as well and she kept it in a tank with feeder goldfish. Well the turtle never ate the goldfish even after years of sharing a tank. The fish got huge, they grew way faster then the turtle did! She ended up rehoming the turtle when she moved to NY but kept the goldfish, which she still has to this day.

Maybe being in a new tank made the fish easier for her to catch somehow? Maybe either she had more space to chase them around, or the fish were sluggish from the move... just ideas.

chesaki · #7 10-29-2007, 05:16 PM

RES is red ear'd slider--a type of turtle. and thats the only time on here i'll actually be answering the questions!

Ravnos · #8 10-30-2007, 12:01 PM

This is completely normal. Simple fact is, fish is a large part of wild slider diet - and really should be in captivity too. Maybe at first he just wasn't hungry... or was intimidated by them... or just didn't feel like chasing them... could be any number of reasons, but no matter how you look at it, any kind of fish are just swimming snacks to almost any aquatic turtle.

People ask me all the time if they can keep fish with their turtles, and I always say the same thing: You -can-, just don't keep them with any fish you will be terribly upset to lose, because it could happen overnight, or it could take years, but eventually the fish will become a meal. I had three large goldfish in my musk turtle tank for over a year. The turtles never bothered them, then one day... poof, no more fish.