Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My turtle's shell is turning white. What's wrong with her?
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Denise (Mom) and/or Jared (son)
Take care!

Without seeing it my first guess would be a fungal infection. Could be another type infection but quite possibly fungal. Is the shell hard? Double check your set up. Is there a basking spot with a light where the turtle can get COMPLETELY dry? Is the tank top mostly open or closed up? A trip to a good turtle vet is probably a good idea to know for sure. Can you attach a photo?

I can't post a pic. 'cause we don't have a digital camera yet but the basking spot is completely dry and i have a 75 watt basking bulb for the day and a 75 watt nigt-glo bulb for night. The other turtle In have in there with her is fine their diet consists of veggies,reptomin baby,and the occasional piece of boiled chicken.
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Denise (Mom) and/or Jared (son)
Take care!

The turtles should be in the water at night. You hopefully have a submersible water heater of some kind? You shouldn't need the night bulb. How far away is the 75 watt day bulb from the basking spot?

We do have a submersible heater,the basking lamp is about 15 in. from basking spot with no glass in between, and they always sleep in the water.
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Denise (Mom) and/or Jared (son)
Take care!

The shells are hard my mom checks them regularly. The white shows up when she has been basking (it doesn't show up when she's basking)for awile and then gos back into the water.Then after about five min. the white's gone.
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Denise (Mom) and/or Jared (son)
Take care!

The extra info about the exact circumstances of when you saw the white really helped me understand what you were seeing.

My RES does a similar thing...on occasion, when he is out of the water for a good long time and gets nice and dry, you see some white patches around the edge of individual scutes. They are still there for the first few minutes that he slips back in the water, then they disappear.

In my experience, his scutes do that (separate off of the shell) as they get ready to flake off when shedding. So, for me, seeing that usually means that he has some scutes that are just getting ready to shed off. After they have shed off, the coloration of those scutes is normal, in the water and out.

Of course my turtle also gives me another good sign that he's shedding...he likes to get a back scratch with the bottom of the ramp on his basking platform