Turtle: Full-grown, 10-inch carapace, healthy and active male spiney softshell. Tank: 125g long/high/normal thing you see when you ask for one. Tank setup: No ornamentation or plants as he just roots up plants and moves stuff too much to risk an object trapping him. 4 inches of washed play sand for substrate. 1/3 water changes weekly. Filtration: 2x Odysea(sp?) 500 with custom-altered media, one at each end. Lighting: whatever flourescents came with the tank package as any UVB from them is blocked by the lid pieces and this species is fully aquatic, without need to bask. Had a basking platform and he stopped using it once I upgraded from the 30g he came in. Now that the required is out of the way, we can move on to the issue at hand. I figured it's time to attempt giving him treats, as I understand he is SUPPOSED to be nearly strictly carnivore. He has pretty much neglected whatever feeders I give him, even now that I've upgraded his tank, so they're just swimming around sharing his space. He still goes for his pellets with ferocity. He also still goes for his dried store-bought shrimp and (voraciously) whatever live shrimp I give him. Which brings the question. I just picked up a jumbo prawn at the grocery today and it is raw, head on, all that good stuff. I understand I am to shell/de-vein/behead/de-tail the prawn before offering it, BUT it is RAW. Seeing he smashes on live shrimp (also, obviously, RAW), I figure there shouldn't be any issue. However, seeing as sometimes things aren't what they seem, is there any issue to feeding him a raw prawn fillet? or should I cook it anyway? Thank you for your patience with the possibly stupid question.
I don't see why you would need to cook it as long as it's fresh an has no added salt, preservatives, or seasoning. You may find he eats the meat out of the shell anyway though. My friend's softshell loved crawdads but she'd tear them up and eat the meat, leaving the exoskeleton to float around the tank until it got netted out. It may save you some trouble to just go ahead and shell the thing.
Thanks. I forsaw that as well and shelled it, he took right to it. Good thing is he didn't seem to be picky about his pellets afterward, either. Any other particular meats that are on the safe list for him?
