Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here are more pic of the pathogen with hemotoxylin staining. Although still hard to see the details, someone told me they are eukaryotic rather than prokaryotic due to the considerable size compared with E.coli. Any more helpful suggestions out there?

I'm a PhD candidate in a Biochemistry lab. Basicaly I have the access to amost any kind of antibiotics, antifungics,and antiseptics, as well as microscopes. I did follow a vet's suggestion, and was trying those antibiotics very carefully according to the articles on tortoisetrust.com. And I dont wanna take a risk to Baytril, due to the potential impairs to the bone/joint development of junior tortoises. I hope somebody can help me id the pathogen, so I could treat them more specifically.

I have no idea what differnt bugs look like, but as a differential based on the therapy you've tried, you may want to see what Mycoplamids look like compared to your slide.

maybe it's something exotic, and worthy of a publication

good luck

>>Here are more pic of the pathogen with hemotoxylin staining. Although still hard to see the details, someone told me they are eukaryotic rather than prokaryotic due to the considerable size compared with E.coli. Any more helpful suggestions out there?
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>>I'm a PhD candidate in a Biochemistry lab. Basicaly I have the access to amost any kind of antibiotics, antifungics,and antiseptics, as well as microscopes. I did follow a vet's suggestion, and was trying those antibiotics very carefully according to the articles on tortoisetrust.com. And I dont wanna take a risk to Baytril, due to the potential impairs to the bone/joint development of junior tortoises. I hope somebody can help me id the pathogen, so I could treat them more specifically.
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I didn't mean any disrespect by my previous post, but you were lacking a concise order of attack and probably made matters worse because of it.
1)Often a "generic" antibiotic is attempted first. Usually more of a cost consideration and likely not a factor considering your resources. I"m glad you read into the Baytril vs young animal here. I don't think this is too much of a concern in reptiles, but why risk it when documentation is low and other antibiotics are available.
2)Culture it. Grow it and see what antibiotics it is resistant to and what will kill it. Do you have sensitivity disks? Remember to seek antibiotics regularly used in reptiles as labs usually test only for common mammilian antibiotics. The easiest way to go about this is to send a sample to your vet who will do this, or have an outside vet/path lab do it. Again, I'm uncertain as to what resources you have at your lab.
3)From the results, choose what seems to be the most appropriate antiobiotic of choice.
4)If no improvement after an appropriate course of antibiotic, consider more diagnostics (another culture, X-ray, ultrasound, blood work)

Also remember that any treatment works best under optimal husbandry, and less so with questionable temps, humidity, stress ect. It never hurts to evaluate the enclosure.

Good luck with your critter

Ian

I didn't feel disrespect at all, and thank you for your suggestions.
I did culture the mucous on sensitive plate twice before I applied the medicines. I can only see some E.coli colonies and some clouds of the microbe picture above, which seemd not grow well on the plate. So I thought it might be mycoplasma(hard to culture) or gram-negtive bacteria infection. I didn't pay enought attention to the pictured microbe, since they were only a few of them under microscopy.
I first tried terramycin, which is mentioned in articles on tortoisetrust, and also I think it's the most common medicine to treat a RNS. I applied 10mg/ml terramycin into the nasal chambers and soak the tortoise in

Thank you Scott, they do look like mycoplasma morphologically in these pix, however, according to their considerable size, they must be something else. Maybe a eukaryotic.