Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Painted turtles

Well thats what ive always called them anyway, they have the red and green strips an there heads. Anyway them things are everywhere in my pond. Does anyone know if they cause problems with the fish population. Just a question im tryin to look at first time pond management from all angles.

Painted, sliders, terrapin...I think they're all the same. They'll eat whatever they can catch, but being they'll have to chase it down, I doubt what they eat (fish wise) amounts to much. Even snappers don't take much from a pond, but can possibly consume much larger fish, due to be being anglers and coaxing its prey to within range with that worm appendage on its tongue. They all consume any dead fish you may have, tho.

The biggest issue with any turtle species is they're adding bio-waste, thus nutrients, to the BOW. The higher the population the greater the influence. Other than being cute, I don't think they provide any measurable benefit.

We all have at least a couple turtles. I've never heard of how to prevent it. All you can do is try to keep them thinned out thru trapping, hook/line or shooting. I've got 3, 1 common snapper and two painted, that I've seen. That's acceptable to me. Any more than that for my little puddle and I'll be taking corrective action.

Do the regular snappers fish with a lure? I know the alligator snappers do but do not recall if the regular snappers can do that or not. I was thinking they were just ambush feeders (always made me nervous wading around creeks as a kid).

In my pond they come and go, both snappers and larger sliders and painted. I'll have several for a while then few. Maybe that is because I have a small seasonal creek behind the pond. The small newly hatched turtles stay in the pond but eventually they move around as they grow up.

Once in a while I will see a large soft shell, which are kind of cool looking things. And fast.

So far turtles have never gotten to the point of excess in my ponds but I have seen ponds where they do become too thick.

I have caught several in my fish trap this year. Had 5 in it last week. Probably why i havent seen a dead fish floating in years.

Yup...they be real good at cleaning up! The only drawback to that is sometimes you never know you may have a problem because they clean up so quickly.

Like I said earlier, a few is never a bad thing, IMHO. Just something else to manage.