Ghost shrimp and Rex loves fish

Over thanksgiving weekend, Rex and Cinderella were treated with some live ghost shrimp. Needless to say they loved them and gobbled them up almost immediately. One of them survived a few days and I even got to see it molt (change skin, shed like a snake). Needless to say, I will try to raise some of them next year.

Anyway, a few days after Rex ate the Chinese Algae Eater, he ate one goldfish. Then a few days after that, he killed one snail, but didn’t eat it. It really stunk when I fished it out of the tank. A few days later, he ate the last goldfish, then ate another snail. This one didn’t smell, as he ate all of it, all the meat, and left only the shell behind. I can only imagine him sucking the snail off its shell….

Poor animals. But hey, in my mind they were all feeders… I’m glad the feeder goldfish are gone, after almost three months. They made too much waste and just added to the bio-load of an already way too undersized turtle tank.

Rex eating the Chinese Algae Eater!!

Two weeks ago I was doing routine tank maintenance. Since it was the first sunday of the month, I did a 100% water change and took the whole set-up apart to scrub everything. In the process, I stupidly broke the water heater and it cracked open. No way was I going to put in a cracked open glass heater in the turtle tank – the turtles might get electrocuted.

So anyway, the turtles still need their tank, so I filled it up with water anyway. To heat it up I turn the ceramic heat lamp on, and to make it quicker, I took a household room heater and pointed it at the turtle tank (it made a lot of noise, but better the water gets warm than the turts freeze).

The water was cold – 50 or 60 degrees, when the ideal red ear slider tank is around 75. I’m guessing the cold water caused the chinese algae eater to slown, slow enough for Rex to be able to kill and eat it. By the time I saw what had happened, Rex had already killed the fish and was already trying to swallow it. I grabbed my camera (which I keep next to the tank) and took some video and pictures.

Note: graphic content follows… The background noise you hear is the room heater blasting at the tank.

(click on the pic to view the video)

In the first video above, Rex is trying to swallow the CAE. It’s too big for him to swallow, that whenever he tries to swallow a little bit more, the fish pops out a bit. He keeps trying and eventually just lets the fish out as he goes to the surface for a breath of air. During most of the video, you can see my other RES, Cinderella, watching from across the tank divider wanting a piece of fish too.

(click on the pic to view the video)

This second video starts with Cinderella trying to reach the dead CAE from under the tank divider (cute!). Rex comes back down from the water surface and tries to eat the CAE again. He’s a lot smarter this time as he starts clawing at it. He manages to gut and skin it, while eating the rest of the fish.

A pic of Rex looking at the skinned CAE.

A pic of the gutted CAE.

(click on the pic to view the video)

This third video has Rex eating the rest of the CAE. He goes up for air again at the end.  My camera’s storage card ran out of memory…

A pic of Rex looking for more fish bits. There are some guts seen in the photo – he doesn’t eat it and I eventually siphon it up.

The lesson in this: always have a back-up heater. Or get one that doesn’t get destroyed so easy. I managed to buy a really good one the day after…

Hope you enjoyed the videos and pictures!