Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I first saw a deep red color change on my turtles belly. She's only a year old and I had taken it to the vet and put her on various antibiotics but it has yet to cure the redness. The vet says it is a respiratory infection. The turtle sometimes breathes with her mouth open which is another symptom, but I've already spend about a $1,000 in vet visits and still no cure. Does anyone know more about what this is or have any suggestions?

I'm NOT saying don't take your turtles to the vet, but I do wonder about the benefits of vet care...sometimes! Turtles don't normally get treatment for their ailments, and the stress of going to the vet and us putting meds on them etc. might make it more difficult to naturally fight off ailments.

Try raising the water temp a bit. Get a UVA/B bulb. Make sure it is both A and B. Get it as close to the basking spot as possible w/o danger of the turt burning itself. I can't say enough about the huge changes in all my turts since I started using UVA/B bulbs at close range like this!

Is the turt still active and eating well?
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
1.0.0 Yellow belly slider
0.1.0 Red belly cooter
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.11.0 chickens
1.0.0 Dutch(rabbit)
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband

She definitely gets stressed from visiting the vet and breathes heavy and won't sit still.
I normally have the temperature at 82 degrees especially since she's sick and I have a UVA bulb but I don't believe it emits UVB so I bought another one for UVB but it's too big so I haven't mounted it yet with my clamp lamp. I think the light should be raised before I plug that one in.
Do you know which ones have both UVA and UVB?
She basks very close to the light within reason but sometimes only in shallow water I was told that if the whole shell doesn't get dry that can cause issues. Someone suggested that she sit in a dry tank with the lamp and dock only to dry out her shell. I don't know if that would help, but I've been trying it.
As far as being her normal self, she's been eating and remains active as always. She's only a little lazy about eating when it's not her favorite food, she apparently prefers the sticks overall.
Do you think that simply basking with UVA and UVB would do it?
They said she has staphlococcus aureus. And prescribed an oral medication.

I'm not a vet, and can't give you medical advice. I will tell you my opinion, but you have to consider everything involved and decided what's best yourself!

I got a slider and cooter from a rescue two year ago. They both had white pitting marks on their shells, presumably from shell rot. I did not bring them to the vet for reasons I already stated, as they were eating, swimming and basking. I got them a UVA/B bulb close to their basking area. I had to adjust the water temp so they would bask more often. The shell rot took it's time, but did clear up on its own.

Your turt MIGHT do well with a break from the med treatment, seeing as it hasn't helped much anyway. If it eats a good diet, is active and basks under a close UVA/B bulb, and doesn't get worse, I would try letting them be for awhile and see what happens.

I looked, but my bulbs don't say a brand name and I don't have the box. But it will say on the box if it had both UVA and
B.

Keep up updated!
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
1.0.0 Yellow belly slider
0.1.0 Red belly cooter
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.11.0 chickens
1.0.0 Dutch(rabbit)
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband

Well this new medication didn't cost much and it actually appears to be taking the red down by a lot I'm just going to use it until it runs out.
She keeps basking in semi-shallow water and I want her to come out higher on the dock but I have to buy a screen for the tank first because when she's all the way out she's too close to the top of the tank.
I'll let you know in a few days if this thing goes away or not and maybe I can switch the bulbs too.

If it's helping, by all means, continue it! lol!

Keep us updated!
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
1.0.0 Yellow belly slider
0.1.0 Red belly cooter
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.11.0 chickens
1.0.0 Dutch(rabbit)
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband

Update:

She's getting much better, eating greens now. Not sure if it's the medicine or just time itself healing her, but the redness is breaking up and slowly going away. She's just as happy as she always was.
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