Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

I am hoping someone out there in the herp community can help me. I've had two unfortunate deaths in the past two days. I have lost a mud turtle and a red ear slider. Neither have any external signs if any injuries. Both are around 4 years old, they were kept in two seperate tanks.

I have the proper lighting and plenty of filtration and do weekly water changes. The only thing that I have done recently that was different was feeding them live feeders from a bait store. The slider only ate one (she was by herself in the tank) and the mud turtle was in a tank with 4 other turtles. Other than that I had recently bought a new commercial food "Exo Terra's Aquatic Turtle food." Both of them acted completely normal hours before their deaths.

Please can someone help me make sense of what happened....

Thanks

I would check the conditions of how the feeders were kept at the "live" bait store. The "bait" foods may have had some kind of drugs/toxins that could of caused the demise of your turtles.
Sorry to hear about your loss.
Goodluck finding the cause.

Thanks so much for the response. My first thought was the fish, they were kept in a blue anti-biotic water. I'll call them back and see exactly what it is that they place in the water. The turtles died almost 10 days after the feeding though... so I'm not really sure if that time frame is correct for a food type poisoning. Does that still make sense to you? Would the turles act normal the entire time? I appreciate the info, I'm gonna call my vet tomorrow and see what they can tell me.

It sounds like methylene blue which is a common tropical fish disease preventative. I believe it kills both harmful and beneficial bacteria; thus, possibly destroying beneficial bacteria in your turtles' digestive tracts. You may want to consider having a necropsy done.
Goodluck