I got two adult peninsula cooters (male and female) several months ago from another herp club member that have been living in a 55gal tank. I just moved them into a 75gal today.

The female was starting to shed her shell when I got her and I just picked off the shell border pieces today because they were incredibly lose and starting to fall off by themselfs. All of the top pieces have come off (near as I can tell). How long does it take a turtle to fully shed? She appears to still have not shed the bottom pieces, should I pick them off or let them be?

I have been doing 100% water changes twice a week since I got them. They have a basking spot with a temperature of 90-80 (depnding on where they bask) and a UVB lamp less than 12" distance from the basking spot. I have been feeding them the same greens that I feed my uro as well as ocasional crickets/can-o-pillars/can-o-shrimp/earthworms with their main diet being zoo med aquatic turtle food pellets and algae wafers that they seem to love. I am going to test out tadpoles, crawfish and dragonfly larva to see if they like to eat them also. So far they like the dragonfly larva.

I noticed today that when inspecting their shells (I do this when I do their water changes) that the female has two smaller than pea sized pinkish/slightly red spots on the bottom of her shell behind her front legs (one spot on each side). What is this? The shell is not soft feeling there, but I didn't want to poke at it too hard as she didn't appreciate being held and shes too big to hold without her scratching the crap out of me. Could it be caused by particles getting caught under her not shed shell? Is it normal? What should I do to make this go away? Any and all thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

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