Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ahhhhh!! I found 2 leeches on my poor baby hatchling painted turtle. I took them off with some tweezers even though I heard that you are suppose to burn them off. That however is kinda hard to do when one is wrapped around his leg and the other one under the same leg. Now I am wondering will he be ok? My whole tank isn't going to become leeche infected now is it? Ewww now I feel all itchy lol. Thats him btw

Next time, soak your turtle in regular tap water. Deep enough that his shell is completely covered but shallow enough that he can hold his head above water when standing up.

The chlorine in the water will irritate the leeches and you will find them on the edge of the container just above the water line after a few hours.

I do this with snapping turtles when I catch them, I had one small snapper with over 100 leeches on his underside.

As for cleaning the tank, I reccomend you fill the tank with tap water and look for leeches after a few hours, and let it sit overnight.

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to burn them off your turtle. Whoever told you that gave you very bad information. All you would end up doing is burning your turtle and doing more harm than the leeches will.

I know I would never do that.. Some idiot when I google searched said 2. As far as I can see they are all gone. I don't know if the tap water thing works. Because when I first got him I put him in a 10 gal filled with tap for a temp setup.

i know the tap water thing works. Maybe your tap water doesnt have as much chlorine as mine, Perhaps you have a water softener or filter that I dont have. When I say tap water, im talkin straight city water- the kind fish will die in. Perhaps your turtle didnt have the leech when you first got him, he may have picked it up from something you put in the tank.

Nope it had to be on him. The stream I got him in isn't that wonderfully clean it had to be from there.

Ok, heres another scenario.

The tap water doesnt kill the leeches, it just irritates them. Perhaps your leech was very small. He let go of your turtle and found his way to above the water line where he waited until the chlorine dissipated from the water, then he made his way back down to your turtle.

How deep did you fill the temp tank?

How long was your turtle in it?

And once again, perhaps your tap water isnt as chlorinated as mine.

The temp tank was not all that deep prob about 8". I had him in it for about a wk. He is fine now. No leeches at all. He is a very happy little guy.