Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a res that is about 4 inches long that i have had for almost a year now. he/she is in a 20long aquarium and has recently stopped eating. i thought this might have something to do with the fact that it has gotten very cold recently. there is no heater in the tank since the room he is in usually stays very hot. since it has been getting cold, i lowered the water level (to only 2 gallons) and i have been leaving his light on 24/7. (its not a heat lamp, just an aquarium hood with an incandescent red bulb. it produces a fair amount of heat.) i do have a heater i can put in there though.
normally i feed flukers aquatic turtle pelletts rolled in nature zone essential vitamins and essential minerals and occasionally some hikari freeze dried shrimp (i cannot get him to take any sort of vegetables.) i also bought him the ectotherm aquatic tutrle yummies which he had absolutely no preference for. (i still have them in the frisge if for some reason they might help.) since he stopped eating i bought some jurassi guard garlic spray. it enticed him once but he only ate one pellet. yesterday i bought the other jurassi guard spary (the banana oil one) and he hasnt responded at all to that. he seems to be acting fine although he did bask all night last night (which is a little unusual)
i also use novaqua and amquel plus to conndition his water (so there are electrolytes in the water from the amquel)
please help me. i will be so upset if i lose him.
here are some picture of him

ok i guess you cant do html here. he is one of the pictures and a link to the other one

Image

you definetely need to get a heater and raise the water level

I would raise the water level to about 2/3 of the way up the tank and put an aquarium heater in the water. Also i would switch out the fish tank hood for a screen lid that you can put a basking bulb and a UVB emmiting bulb on. The "land" area should reach a temperature highin the 80's, and the water should be in the mid to upper 70's.

Once you have fixed all of these problems, if he is still not eating i would try inticing him with some different foods. Try live crickets, earthworms or pieces of fresh seafood.

If he still isn't eating i would consider taking him to the vet. The fact that you did not mention he has a UVB bulb really worries me as lack of D3 can affect their metabolism.
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1.0 green iguana-Deitrich
1.1 Common Boa-Un-Named, Ursula
1.0 Ball Python-Anabell (go figure!)
1.0 Red Tegu-Uteg
1.0 Albino Cal King-Pig
0.1 Mexican Black King-Morticia
1.1 Bearded Dragons-Unnamed, Hanabil
1.0 Albino San Diego Gopher-Unnamed
0.1 Hermans tort-Esio
1.1 JCP-Milton, Medusa
1.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn-Unnamed
0.1 Snow Corn-Unnamed
1.0 Hypo Okeetee Corn-Unnamed
0.1 Motley Okeetee-Unnamed
1.0 Western Hoggie-Wyrm
0.0.1 Rose Hair Taruntla-Unnamed
2.0 Leopard Geckos-Reptar, Pogo
4.1 cats-Tucker,Poe,Abhib,Emerald, Felicity
0.1 Bullmastiff-Asha

You need to warm the room up. It really should not drop below
70 degrees. With that room temp, with the basking lights on
and UVB bulb like Reptisun 5.0 on 12 hours per day with a
natural cool down at night, your RES should start eating again.
Make sure the basking light(use a white light like a household
bulb) to get the basking temp to 85 degrees. You can also
raise the water level as the lights during the day will warm
the water naturally.

I have maintained my 4 turtles for years this way.

Please make the necessary adjustments BEFORE your RES gets
pneumonia.

Linda