Reptile & Amphibian Forums

today i was cleaning my AST's tank and i put my turtles back into the tank and the water was a little warmer than usuall and it induced a bowel movement in my hypo i noticed a stringy white object that was about three inches long coming out of her vent and i pulled gently on it and it kept on coming out of her i pulled about eight inches out of her. now i have only had my ast's for about a month and unfortunately i made the mistake of feeding them gold fish the first time that i fed them. i read on this forum that gold fish harbor lots of nasties such as worms and other parasites and that the turtles are unable to process the copper sulfate that the stores treat the gold fish with so i discontinued the use of the gold fish and switched to strickly pellets and guppies. i am worried that my turtle contracted worms from the gold fish and i am wondering how all of you treat your ast's for this problem or maybey i dont have a problem at all and this is normal though i doubt it so any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.....

Sounds like a tapeworm. I had same problem about a month ago. I took my AST to the Vet and he gave it a shot of Dronzit to kill the tapeworm and its eggs. Seemed to work because I have not noticed any more white ribbons coming out of his vent. I would definately take the turtle to the vet though since under medicating will not kill the parasites and over medicating might kill your turtle.

I think anytime you feed any live fish (even minnows ) you risk exposing your turtles to parasites.

VS

yeah i would take mine to the vet but i was given mine and they are illegal here i dont have a vet i can take them to i need to know if there is any way to treat it myself????