While it is relatively new to the game, there has been a lot of buzz around Saki Hikari turtle food. While they historically focused on goldfish and koi fish food, they are making a splash with their new turtle sticks. In today’s article, I will give a Saki Hikari turtle food review and let you know whether or not I recommend it.

Saki Hikari turtle food review

Saki Hikari is a high quality turtle food that is one of the best brands on the market. My turtle loves the taste, and the food has great hygienic perks.

The sticks also provide a wide range of important nutrients for turtles.

Taste

Let’s start with the most important quality, taste. It doesn’t matter how healthy a turtle pellet is if your turtle refuses to eat it because of the taste. Luckily, you will not have to worry about this with hikari turtle food.

My turtle absolutely loves the taste, and immediately devours any stick I put in her tank. The pellets have a shrimp like smell to them, which I think is why my turtle loves them so much.

I like that the pellets are not too hard, and they have a neutral brown color. I’ve noticed that my turtle can be hesitant when pellets come in other colors such as green.

In a test among 8 different types of turtle pellets, hikari turtle food ranked second for the best taste. You can see my video below to watch the full competition.

If you’re interested in other brands in the video, you can check out my ReptoMin turtle food review and Mazuri turtle food review.

While I haven’t ran into the issue of my turtle not eating, there are many people who have claimed that they couldn’t get their turtle to eat until they tried Hikari sticks. While I can’t confirm or deny these claims, I’d say it’s a pretty good indicator that turtle like the taste.

Cleanliness

While it’s probably not one of the first things you think about when it comes to turtle food, it is important that you avoid messy foods. For example, pellets that break apart too easily or sink to the bottom are more likely to cause a mess in your tank.

Luckily, Hikari pellets float for a long period of time without getting too soggy or sinking. On the label of the pellets, there are two graphs that highlight the hygienic perks of the food.

According to the first table, Hikari turtle sticks produce 88% less methyl mercaptan gas. While I am no chemist, I am guessing this confirms that Hikari pellets produce less odor compared to competitors.

In the second table, the label claims that Hikari sticks help maintain a much clearer water compared to competitors. I haven’t noticed a difference in my water clarity, but it was already pretty good to start with. Other reviewers have claimed that their water is better after switching to Hikari.

Regardless, it’s important to remove any uneaten sticks from your tank to prevent the food from breaking down inside the tank.

Nutrients

Another important aspect of choosing a turtle food is the ingredients. Turtles require a decent amount of nutrients and vitamins, so it’s important that your pellets contain them. Luckily, Hikari seems to have all of the important nutrients.

The label indicates that the food contains, crude protein, fiber, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D3, and vitamin E. It also contains a lot of probiotics which is good for your turtle’s gut health.

Hikari claims that its food has everything your turtle needs, and there is no need to supplement your turtle’s diet with other pellets.

While Hikari does appear to have all of the important nutrients, I would still recommend occasionally mixing in other pellets to their diet. Not only will this help ensure your turtle is accessing a wide list of nutrients, but it also helps prevent your turtle from becoming a picky eater.

This will become more important as your turtle gets older and will require more vegetables and less pellets/protein. If you’ve only fed your turtle one type of pellet its entire life, it will be much hard to make this transition.

Price

Hikari turtle food is slightly on the expensive side, but not by much. I found that out of the 8 most popular turtle food brands, Hikari was the fifth cheapest. However, other brands were only marginally cheaper (a couple dollars), so it’s not much of a difference.

On amazon, there are two sizes, a 7 ounce and a 20 ounce. The 7 ounce bag costs $9.79, and the 20 ounce bag costs $16.31. I would suggest starting out with the 7 ounce just to make sure your turtle likes it.

How many Hikari turtle pellets to give a turtle?

The amount of Hikari turtle sticks that you give your turtle will depend on your turtle’s age. On average, I give my turtle around 15-20 sticks per feeding. It usually takes her around 1-2 minutes to finish them all, and there are rarely any pellets left over.

You can learn more in my guide on how much to feed a turtle.

It’s important to not feed your turtle more than 1-2 times per day. It can be hard, especially when your turtle is begging, but overfeeding can cause serious health problems for your turtle.