Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my slider has white spots sporadically on his shell, i noticed them about a week & a half ago. i bought some betadine scrub from the pharmacy where i work, & have been using it once a day on his shell. i think hes also shedding scutes, except a few of them are more like peeling than anything. i do a 50% water change once a week, more often if i have time. i was feeding him twice a day, but found out thats too much & have him weened down to once a day. we put guppies in there a few times but they dont usually get eaten unless i put them in freezing water & feed them to him by hand. he loves reptomin pellets, so far its the only think i can get him to eat. advice? theories? thoughts? thanks...

You should try veggies and lettus, but not iceburg or spinach. Turtles need a fairly substantial portion of their diet to be greens. At least once they are a good few inches. Babies often have a more carnivorus diet. The peeling scuts is them sheding them. I pull the peeling scuts off, i don't want bacteria and stuff making a home in the spaces between shell and scut. Obviously if it's not coming off with a gental pull don't force it. Adding a calcium block or cuttle bone might help? ( not 100% on that though). As for the white spots, i don't really know what they are but my turtles have had a few over the years. They seemed to fall off at some point. Maybe someone else can offer a better answer.
-----
- 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

any info is good info, thanks for the suggestions. i bought romaine for my box turtle, i guess ill have to keep trying. if i take him out of the water he tries to bite whatever is dangling in front of him, but then i have to put him back in the water, where he spastically swims in circles & usually whatever i fed him ends up breaking off or falling out & he wont touch it after that. trust me, ive been trying to figure out how else to do it, but hes just not interested in anything but his pellets. its getting frustrating, because apparently his pigheaded.

know anything about vitashell? my vet recommended it but i ran out of what i had & the pet stores around here dont sell it. i can get it online, but even when i was using it, it didnt look like it made much of a difference.

The picture of your turtle doesn't look like there is any shell rot.

that pic was right after i got him. i havent gotten one of him lately, im gunna do that tomorrow if i remember.

this is what im talking about. seems to be mostly on the scutes that are either peeling or shedding. the betadine doesnt seem to be helping any.

That looks like mineral deposits, from hardwater. It won't hurt your turtle it just looks bad