Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I recently bought a couple of baby RES and so did my mom we had everything ready for them, the tank, filter, chemicals to treat the water, food, lamp, floating rock, etc...
and then all of a sudden they started getting sick and dying. one of my mom's turtles died first then one of mine, i didn't want my other baby turtle to be lonely so i bought another baby to keep him company, well it turns out the new baby lasted even less and now my mom's las turtle died and my last one is heading in that direction as well.
I don't know what to do, is there something we did wrong? , i never let the tank get dirty i fed them enough.
in the pet store where i got them they told me the water from the sink had too much chlorine so I bought one of those PURWATER filters to have filtered water just for their tank, in addition to that they sold me this thing called AQUASAFE which is supoused to kill chlorine and make water safe for them also this other product TURTLECLEAN which control the waste we did everything they told us and still they died. I am starting to think the turtles in taht pet store were sick to beguinn with .
Now i'm doing everything possible for my las baby not to die, but he's not eating, he can't even see the food, his eyes are completely shut he doesn't move from the rock.

PLEASE HELP ME!! tell me did we do something wrong? what are we not doing??

Thank you!

Sounds like a sick batch of turtles to me. The chlorine thing they told you was a bunch of bologne.

What is your water temperature? what is the basking temperature?
Do you have a heater in the tank.

Sounds like you animals have some kind of bacterial infection.
Make sure the water temp is around 75 degrees and the basking area is 85-90 degrees. I think the little guy may need to see a vet to determine what the problem is though.

Should it not survive I recommend to clean and sterilize all your equipment before you try again and DO NOT purchase any additional animals from the petshop you got them from originally.
It may not have been something that came from the petshop but it still is not worth the risk of losing more.

Good luck

I agree..sounds like you got a sick batch. I would not go back there at all. RES babies can be very difficult to keep alive though...they require so much. DO you have a tank heater? Also RES need UVA and UVB lighting? I recommend, if you have not already, taking the turle you have left out of the tank and cleaning the hell out of it and everything you had in it. Don't add any chemicals to the fresh water you put in the tank and make sure the tank is the proper heat before you put him back in. The junk they told you about your water was a line pet stores use. Don't buy it. I hope everything works out for the best. Let us know.

It does sound like an infection, but another cause of closed puffy eyes can be a deficiency in vitamin A. You can usually find vit A suppliments at your pet store, make sure it hasn't past date, cause a lot of pet stores sell old product, and it looses potency with age. It can be admistered orally or directly into their water, generally.
I would say take it to the vet first, they would be able to tell you what exactally the problem is.

Good Luck
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- Melanie

2.0.0 cats
0.0.3 crested geckos
1.2.2 leopard geckos
1.0.0 Bernese mountain dog
1.1.1 red ear sliders
0.0.1 emperor scorpion
0.0.1 chilean rose tarantula
1 south american cichlid tank
2 planted tanks with dwarf cichlids and platies

Thanks to all of you for your replying.

My baby turtle is still in the same situation, not eating, eyes wide shut, doesn't move from the floating rock.
I'm going to start looking for a vet, anybody knows about how much can that cost me? a'm not sure if I can afford it but i'll try.
the water temperature is on 75 now i had it on 79 before, also for the basking area i have a lamp, which heats up a little, but i don't know if it is enough. should i buy some specific heater for the basking area?

Thank you!!

I would get a thermometer on that platform so you know exactly how warm it is getting/not getting. A basking/heat light doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Many of us around here just use one of those clip lights with the reflection bowl and shine it on the basking location. You will probably need to experiement a bit with where you put the light and what wattage of bulb you use.

As for bulbs, you need both UVA and UVB lighting. If money is getting tight with all this stuff you have had to get, you can use a regular incandescent bulb in the basking lamp, but then you absolutely must get a UVB light too. UVB lights usually come in the form of a florescent tube bulb, and you might need a lightstrip fixture for that if you don't already have one. UVA (also know as Full Sprectrum) look like incandescent bulbs but have special coatings inside.

The most important thing to remember is that turtles need BOTH UVB and UVA...the only kind of bulb (I think) that does both is a mercury vabor bulb, and those are expensive. (Around $35-50 depending on where you buy.) If it doesn't specifically say on the packaging that it provides either UVA or UVB, then it doesn't. So checking everything out well before you buy.

Hope this helps and good luck!