Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm a new turtle owner. I got a slider from a local retile swap when it was about the size of a quarter. I've had it for about a month now in a 30-gallon tank with about a square foot of dry basking area on top of the water. He is growing and eating very well. 90% of his diet is live fish. There are a few questions that I have that have been worrying me, and I hoped I could get a little help from the pros:

1) One side of his shell is concave rather than convex like I would expect to be normal. It is also discolored on that side. The discoloration started out dark, but became light around the border, and is not light-colored throughout. The size of the discoloration is about 1.5 square centimeters. A turtle expert at a vet told me that it was just molting and the discolored part would soon fall off. Does that sound familiar? I can send pictures on request.

2) He doesn't bask. Though there's plenty of heated basking room, I've only seen him basking once or twice. Is this unhealthy, or is it just his preference?

3) As of yesterday, I've noticed that the side of him with the concave shell is significantly less buoyant than the other side. This seems to make swimming and navigating the water awkward. Has anyone heard of something like this?

Any help than can be offered would be immensely appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Dan

sounds like some sort of health problem. a pic would help us help you though. too much live fish can lead to too much protein which can cause pyramiding of the shell. i use only pellets, but if you want to use live at least feed him more pellet. some turtles dont bask as much as others. a few hours per day if you have really good lighting is all that is necessary. he may be basking when you arent around, they usually dont like to bask with you in the room until they realize you are not trying to eat them, which is what their instincts are telling them you are trying to do. what filter do you have? what lighting do you have? it sounds like he may need to go to a good reptile vet with experience with treating turtles. even if he is shedding, the floating problem could be a symptom of a very serious problem. either way, pics of him and his setup will be appreciated.

Thanks for the reply. Here are some pictures of the turtle, and the fourth one is a picture of his whole habitat. The filter is a Duetto, and there are heaters on each side. The water stays around 80F. The top light in the picture is a 75W heat/UVA bulb. The bottom one is just a normal light bulb.

Here are links to the pictures:
http://www.danlucka.com/images/turtle/1.jpg
http://www.danlucka.com/images/turtle/2.jpg
http://www.danlucka.com/images/turtle/3.jpg
http://www.danlucka.com/images/turtle/4.jpg

Thanks for your time and your help.
Dan

pics didnt show up.

Ack, sorry about that. You can copy those addresses into your browser and they'll get you to the pictures. They're pretty big so give em a minute to load.

where did you get it? it is a nice looking pastel. how did you setup the land? i would get a better filter, whisper 10i, 20i would be better. shell looks like there could be something wrong with it, not sure what or how to fix it. what type of light is it? you need a full spectrum UV light and a heat lamp. what do you feed? proper food and lighting may be all it needs to correct itself (as far as the shell goes), but it could also be something more serious requiring vet attention. heaters need to be lowered, if they are up too high they will stay on. i never feed live food due to the risk of introducing parasites and diseases. a variety of about 4 different brands of food is good. i only use pellet and my turtles are growing great and less aggressive than they would be otherwise.

The land is the green foam stuff that you put fake flowers in to make bouquets. I carved a little river with a Dremel with the output of the filter flows down. It's held up by a right-angle clear plastic held up with silicon (the stuff you use in bathtubs).

I got him from a reptile swap (www.reptileswap.com). He was one of two pastels that the vendor had. I chose him because he was moving the most

His diet is mostly live fish, but I guess I'll be changing that as I've heard too much protein is bad. He LOVES freeze dried krill, and he'll eat Reptomin if it's hungry enough.

The light doesn't provide UVB. Embarrasslingly enough I didn't know that I needed that until today when I really tried to crack down on what's going on with him. I plan to get a new light tomorrow.

I didn't really worry about his shell until I noticed that he doesn't float straight. I'm wondering if he ate a pebble or two...

In any case, I'm going to definitely get a nice UVB light. I assume that's why the part of his shell that has grown since I've had him is darker than the part that he had. I won't worry about his shell as much since no one seems to recognize it specifically as something that's bad. I'll still worry about his off-kilter buoyancy, and if that doesn't go away in a day or two I'll make a few calls to some vets.

Thanks for your time. If you can think of anything else that I should be doing that I haven't covered, I would love to hear it.

Dan

About the arching shell, usually it means that your turt got pneumonia. You could make it slightly warmer for the turt, and check that the tempterature doesnt get to low. Pneumonia usually makes one of the turtles lungs bigger than the other, wich may explain the arched floating. To be more specific, i suggest to check with an experienced vet. Nice turt though ^^

O yeah, also dont feed fish to often, besides it being to much protein, fish also contain thyamine wich interferes with vitamin (if i'm not mistaken, vitamin B) abosorbtion. I'd rather feed them fish once in a while, besides it being an excellent source of protein & calcium (from the bones) wich babies/growing turts need, give extra excercise wich also helps muscle growth.

Krill are great for rougheage additional calcium. Also experiment with some fish food (i've noticed that some turtle pellets have almost the same composition as fish food), turtle pellets, earthworms (i culture my own, & all my turts just love em), baby crickets (pinheads are nice for babies) and you may even try starting feeding a little fruit. The key word is variety (& dont forget good hygene). Good luck ^^
-----
My "babies" :
1.0.0 Indo BTS (Tiliqua gigas gigas)
0.0.1 Rainbow skinks (Mabuya multifasciata)
0.0.3 RES (Trachemys scripta elegans)
0.0.3 Amboina box turtles (Cuora amboinensis)
1.0.0 Chinese softshell (Trionyx sinensis)
1.0.0 Asian leaf turtle (Cyclemys dentata)
1.0.0 Leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius)
And still growing...

Pneumonia, eh? Is this something that will cure itself, or is there anything that I can do to help him get better faster other than heating the water more?

Does that explain why do doesn't bask as much? And does that have any correlation with his shell's discoloration?

I noticed just this morning that little spots on the discoloration are becoming pearlescent. It doesn't show up in the pictures that I just took yesterday. Does that mean anything to anyone?

Sorry about all the questions, but I sincerely thank you for taking the time to answer them and help me out.

Dan

If it is pneumonia it will not resolve itself. Your turtle will need to see a vet to confirm this and also need a course of antibiotics.

The biggest reason that most turtles do not bask is that the water temperature is warmer that basking area. It is not necessary to keep your water at 80 degrees. Sliders do well in 72-75 degree water with a basking area of 85-90 degrees.

What you are experiencing with the shell may be that water is getting under the unshed scute. Try dry docking the turtle for a while (take him out of the tank and put in a dry container that he cannot climb out of for 3 or 4 hours). This may get the scute to lift off exposing the good shell underneath.

A varied diet is the best way to go. Pellets, leafy greens like chicory, escarole, dandelion greens, fish, shrimp, scallops, krill, gamarus. A little of everything and not too much of anything (except for the greens -- let him eat as much as he wants and as he gets older it will gradually become the favorite part of his diet.)

If he continues to swim lopsided get him to a vet. Respiratory infection can kill a turtle if left untreated.

Good luck

Steve

Wonderful. I'll certainly try that. Thank you for the help.

Dan

My baby turtle's shell is only about 1" long but I keep the water at about 82 degrees, is that too warm? Also, I have a light and it says it gives UVA rays. It's a long 60W exo terra bulb with a blue coating on it. I was just checking the package to see if it also gave UVB, but it doesn't say so. Is the bulb I have ok or do i need a different one? What kind of bulbs give UVB light or full spectrum lighting?

Mercury vapor bulbs (Mega-ray, Capture Sun) These are large bulbs though and if you have a small setup for your turtle at this point it may not be the way to go. They have flourescent units which give you the UVB you will need. Do you have a heat lamp for him too. He should have a heat lamp in addition to the FLOURESCENT bulb for basking. Your water should be 72-75 degrees with a basking area 85-90 degrees.

The advantage of the mercury vapor bulb is that it is an all in one bulb. Gives the necessary UVB ray and heat all in one. Again with a small turtle in a small setup it may not be feasible to go this way yet.

Steve

Well, Lothar (my turtle) and I went to the vet this evening. Looks like it WAS pneumonia, and the shell problem was a small infection.

The vet gave Lothar an injection of an antibiotic for the pneumonia, and asked that I bring him back for two more in two-day intevals.

For the shell problem, he prescribed Betadine scrub, which I am to apply once a day with a toothbrush.

Does that sound right?

that sounds right, but i have never had to deal with those things before.

Cool. I'll let you know how his recovery progresses.

what type of infection was on the shell? bacterial or fungal?

They doc said bacterial. He just peeled away a few of the scutes and used his fingernail to get some of the white gunk out from under them. He said it's a fairly common infection that happens when the scutes don't lift themselves up; it just creates a pocket for stuff to build up in.

It's shellrot and your vet is correct it is fairly common and often times cause by an unshed scute that gets water trapped under it. The bacteral builds up and causes the rot.

Did the vet tell you to give him dry dock time too? It is important to put him in dry container for while and let him dry out well after you give him his treatment.

I have gotten in some very severe cases of shell rot and would dry dock the animals for as much as 23 hours a day until they healed up. Most of these cases were quite severe.

Steve

He said 5-10 minutes, rinse him, then put him back in...I don't think drydocking him for longer would hurt though...maybe I'll do that today.

Also, I couldn't find any Betadine. I'm using Bacitracin. Will that do the trick?

I would get the betadine. It is very common. Just ask someone to help you find it or ask your vet if he/she could supply it.
Also you could ask your vet to write a prescription for Silvadene (sp?) cream. It is better option than bacitracin. I really think that you can find the betadine though. I have even picked it up in grocery stores.

I think some dry dock time is a good thing too. It certainly can't hurt.

I'll ask for Betadine then. And as for the drydocking, Lothar's chillin on my desk with me right now. I'll put him back in the water once he tires himself out.