giving turtles vitamins....

how do you guys go about giving your turtles vitamins and calcium, i sprinkled some cuttlefish onto my softshells food but as soon as you put it into the water it just washes off.
i tried feeding him the food by hand but as soon as he got back in the water he spat it out, just wondered what all you turtle keepers do?
many thanks.

[Graham]

What are you feeding him? If you feed good quality pellet food (OK for turts, not for torts!) it shoud have all the neccessary vits and minerals in it. A balanced diet of pellets, dried fresh water shrimp, fresh meat and fish, and veggies should give him all he needs.
Or you can make up your own food by mixing meat/fish/veg with gelatine, add vits and minerals, pour into a shallow tray and allow it to cool and solidify, then cut into small cubes and freeze. When you feed him the cubes the gelatine keeps it all together and stops the vits and minerals from dissolving.

well i only got him yesterday, and by the time i got back the petshop was closed so i couldnt go buy anything for him, i was in the petshop today they didnt have any turtle pellets, although they did have tortoise pellets , can turtles eat these out of interest??? i was going to buy him some worms but i completely forgot to get them.

i gave him a couple of prawns yesterday evening, he did eat a little but the vits washed off as soon as they touched the water.

i will be giving him a nice varied diet, of fish, some meat, pellets (going to a different petshop tomorrow), will try him on a piece of romaine lettuce to see if he will eat veg.

does the gelatine not dissolve when put in the water??? how small should the cubes be when i freeze them??

[Graham]

does the gelatine not dissolve when put in the water???

It only dissolves in hot water. I make cubes about the size of sugar cubes, they're soft enough that they can tear them apart if they're too big to eat in one mouthful.

You can get turtle pellets online cheaper than in the petshop, I bought two 8oz tubs of T-Rex pellets on eBay the other week for £2 each instead of the usual £5 or so, and there's a seller in Portugal that I get 100g bags of dried shrimp from for much less than the tiny little tubs you get in the shops.

Koi pellets are good too and cheap if you buy the larger size packs.

[TartanTurtle]

I've also used ebay to get the pellets i want.As Graham said
as long as its fed a good quality pellets theres no real need to
feed extra vitamins or calcium.But i do sometimes add bird
cuttle bone just incase lol, for the big turtles i throw it in whole
but for the smaller i chop into bitesize pieces, remember to take
the backing off the cuttle bone as turtles have been known to
choke on it.