Hello everyone,

This is my first post on kingsnake. I'm looking for confirmation of my suspicions and possibly suggestions and help. I recently have had two deaths within two weeks of river turtles. The first was a musk turtle who I've had for about two years now. He was found floating in the tank very bloated and starting to decompose, but had no signs of illness or injury. I chalked his death up to old age.

I then went out and bought a map turtle. He did come with some signs of shell rot. Small soft spots spread across his shell, one with a bit of white on the top, as well as a couple of "hollowed out" hard areas. He was so well tempered that I bought him anyway because I have the ointment and betadine to treat a turtle with shell rot at home.

Now it is a week later and the map turtle seems to have passed as well. We noticed last night that he "urinated" a lot in the dry tank where I put him after a brush down with betadine and this morning found him motionless. He also has little red spots on his skin and I though perhaps this was some of his coloring but after reading online today I'm suspicious of septicemia. Perhaps he was more sick than I thought?

The other factor is that we recently moved to a new area. Although I've had my turtles (4) for 4-5 years and always used tap water, I'm afraid this new area may have more chlorinated water. Does that affect river turtles more strongly? My painters and E.African Side Neck seem to be fine. The only difference in them is that the side neck is a bit more sluggish lately but we figured that is because she did change temperatures and was maybe thinking it was hibernation time. That fixed after I made sure she was warm enough.

Any advice and/or confirmation would be so helpful...



Thank you in advance,

TRTLLVR

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