Adding fish with turtles

Someone gave my mother two baby red ear sliders last October shortly after they were born. She sent them to my house so I could raise them over the winter. She has a 1,200 gallon pond they will be going into when the water gets warm enough.

I want to get my mom a couple of fish. The turtles are currently in a 75 gallon aquarium that is filled apx. 3/4 full. Would the fish be ok if I got them and quarantined them in the tank with the turtles, or would they pick on them? She has other fish in her pond so I don't want to put any new ones in that may be sick or infected with something. This way, I could kill two birds with one stone and put them all in at the same time.

I don't have a good answer, but I dug my mother about a 150 gal mini pond and she put about 10 - 1-6" goldfish in it and a RES showed up one day and hung out for a couple weeks after a storm. He left and all the fish were fine and accounted for. Not sure if that counts for much.

Turtles may eat fish. If they catch them. But keep the turtle feed they my leave the fish alone. But a well feed turtle is a pooping one so run a good filter. They can trash water quality fast.

I have a few fish in with my painted turtle and she doesn't bother them. There are plenty of places for them to hide and the turtle is well fed. The fish are much smaller than her and if she really wanted to she could eat them, but like Steve said as long as the turtles are well fed there shouldn't be any issues..... But don't quote me on that

Sounds good guys. Thanks. I am running a the Rena XP3 on the tank so I think I should be fine water quality wise. I'm feeding them LOTS to get them to a good size to put in the pond so I don't think that should be an issue either. The turtle in her pond now has never bothered her fish before, but I just wasn't sure about a smaller area. I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens.

I appreciate everyone's input. That's why I love this group.

I have had a few painted turtles that loved to eat fish, but I guess it it depends on the turtle and conditions...

Good Luck!!!

Well, here's an update to my question. I bought a 4 inch shabunkin (don't quote the spelling), a couple of royukins (again w/the spelling) and a lion head. I put a couple of hides in the tank in case they felt like they needed to get away. The next morning, the tails and fins were gone on the three smaller ones and they were bobbing around on the bottom of the tank. They never bothered the larger one, so I went back to the pet store and picked up 3 golden orfs. They are fast swimmers and will go well in the pond. They also grow to a pretty good size.

One thing to consider is that sliders are mostly carnivorous as juveniles and become more omnivorous as the reach adulthood. In the wild the amount of animal material consumed drops to 10% by the time the turtle reaches a plastron length of about 5 cm (2 inches).

Interesting to know. These guys are about 3 1/2 - 4" long now. I guess the fish were their 10%. Go figure. I give them a lot of romaine lettuce, anacharas, and other edible water plants along with their turtle sticks, cuddle bone chips, freeze dried krill and super worms, so they get a varied diet. I guess the tails were just too temptng to pass up.

i had a western painted turtle that was well fed on commercial pellets, dried worms and crickets, dried shrimp, i threw some feeder fish in the tank and within a couple days they had all been gobbled up. today i bought some fat little feeder goldfishes and put them in with a sideneck i just got. hes been stalking them but he doesnt usually eat until night.

it might help if u took the turtles out and let the fish adjust first. Give them 30 minutes to adjust to new tank and water. they are at their most vulnerable when u first add them

put 5 fat goldfish in with the sideneck and today they are all gone minus a fish head floating around. floated the bag for 15 mins in the tank before i released them. managed to hand feed the turt 1 fish to see if he liked it. now they are all gone!

I've had fairly good success keeping fish with my turtles. When the turtles are young they have not seemed to bother other fish. As they get older your best bet is to keep several dither fish with them. Danios or tetras. You want really fast swimmers in your turtle tank.