Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi

My RES is just under a year old. She used to love swimming under water. About two months ago she suddenly lost the ability to do so. Now she tries to swim down to the bottom of the tank but keeps floating up to the surface right away like she is too buoyant.

Does anyone know what is wrong with her and how it can be fixed?

Chris

sounds to me like your RES might have a respiratory infection, this causes them to float sometimes! is your RES coughing or opening it's mouth at all? is it making any odd noises? I would say the best thing for you to do is to find a herp vet near you and take your turtle to it as soon as possible! if your turtle DOES have a respiratory infection, it could die without proper care... hope this helps
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~ Evie

Pets:
RIP 0.1.0 German Shepherd {Dusty}
0.1.0 German Shepherd/Collie mix {Shadoe}
0.0.2 RES turtles {Booger & Snot}
1.0.0 African Clawed Frog {Bingo}
0.0.2 Snail {Gary & Larry}

She isn't showing any other signs of RI. When we took our other turtle of the same age to the vet, the vet said that the turtle was too small to get anti-biotics for RI.

Chris

Thats sounds like a strange thing for your vet to say. I took a sick baby turtle only about 1 inch and my vet gave me antibotics, diluted the solution and gave me a dosage for the little guy, but I had to give it through a shot, some people arn't tough enough to do this. I got over it real fast. I am afriad of needles but I managed to sick the little thing in the arm every couple days.
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~Akira
1.0 African Fat-tailed Gecko
0.0.1 Leopard Gecko (hypo tangrine circle-back?)
0.0.2 Red Ear Slider

Read my other post.

About the turtle being too small, that is not nessasarely true. You can give anitbiotics to a small reptile, just like to a child.... you just need to change the dosage. Take the turtle out of the tank and set up a temporary "drydock" area for it with plenty of heat. A rubbermaid container will do and only let the turtle go in the water for 1/2 hour a day to drink and eat.

usually when they float and cannot swim, your turtle has a respitory infection or pumenonia (sp?)

Check your temps, make sure the turtle is basking and getting enough heat, and if at all possible, take it to the vet. You may need to "drydock" your turtle for a period of time if it is indeed pumenonia to insure that it get's plenty of heat to fight off the sickness. You will need to get baytril from the vet that will need to be administered either orally or via injection depending on what works best for your turtle.

Do it's eyes look cloudy? Do you see any discharge out of the nose or hear any wheesing or popping noises when it breathes??

Her eyes do look a little cloudy but none of the other symptoms you mention. Thanks for your advice, I'll try it.

Chris