So...a turtle in a koi pond??

[JenH]

A friend of mine found a turtle along side of the road yesterday and delivered the little guy to my pond while I was at work. After seeing it in person and a few minutes of Google, I've come to the conclusion that it is a painted turtle. It's around 4-5" diameter. To be honest, I'm surprised one hadn't made its way to my pond on its own anyway and I do think it's pretty cute, so should I be concerned? Again, Google has a way of inciting terror in everything, and I definitely found some horror stories in keeping turtles in water gardens. LOL! But I thought I remembered that some of you have turtles in your ponds and all is well. What do you guys think?

 

[addy1]

I have turtles come and go, but mine , so far, have been land turtles. They do get into the pond, off and on, but move out back to land.

 

[Priscilla]

Unless it has sharp claws, I would let it stay! But that's me ...... and my often bad pond decisions. LOL!

Let us know what you decide to do and post a picture.

 

[mrtrumpet]

Agree on the claws part. That could be a lining problem. I had a red ear turtle visit once for about a week, then he was gone. No problems, but he/she wasn't very friendly. Didn't bother my koi, but they were all about 20" at the time. They might go for little ones.

 

[Riftlake]

I had a couple of painted turtles in a pond with goldfish, koi, and rosey red minnows, and noticed no problems with the turtles bothering the fish. They may have been getting a few of the minnows, which were very prolific anyway. The turtles were well fed too though, as they always went after the pellets when I fed the fish. I did notice some occasional nips in the leaves of the pond plants. Since the painted turtles are omnivores and tend to lean more towards a veggie diet the older they get, feeding them some greens might help to keep them from scarfing up your plants. I enjoyed having the painteds in my pond very much, and think they are worth the little damage they caused.

 

[Tula]

I purchased a couple yellow eared sliders a few years back for the pond. I was told they wonder off, so I became concerned if they got out of the pond area, one of our dogs might " play " with them and hurt them. I was also concerned about them hibernating in the winter as I have a liner pond, so I returned the,

Since then I met a lady who told me she just puts a dish pan of sand on the bottom of her pond and hers hibernate in that for the winter. She did mention they produced quite a bit of waste.