Juvenile soft-shelled turtles (P. sinensis)were cultured in our laboratory.
Fertilized turtle eggswere transferred to our laboratory from a turtle
farm located at Pingtung, Taiwan. The eggs were incubated in our
laboratory at 30 °C for approximately 45 days to produce juveniles.
These juvenile turtles were then acclimated to laboratory conditions
and fed on a vitamin C-free basal diet for 4 weeks. Culture conditions
were similar to those described (Chen et al., 2014; Chen and Huang,
2011; Chu et al., 2009). In brief, following the acclimation period, 140
evidently healthy turtles (mean initialweight: 4.3 g)were randomly selected
and individually placed into plastic cylindrical containers (18 cm
depth × 20 cm height). A completely randomized design was used in
this experiment. Seven experimental diets were randomly assigned to
the 140 turtles. To minimize the effort required by turtles to breathe,
the height of the water in each container was adjusted to the height
of each individual turtle. The housing units were kept indoors at
30 ± 1 °C and a 12-h photo-period for the entire feeding period was
maintained.