Urgent Care :: Flaky Shell

[jawsspeedymrt]

How big is your turtle? Five Inches
How long have you had it? About two years

What is the water temperature? 70 at night 80-85 during the day
Did you use a thermometer? yes
Are you using a water heater? not right now
How much water is in there? 70 gallons
Are you using a water conditioner? yes AmQuell Plus
Are you using any filtration? Yes two Magnum 350's

What is the basking temperature? ??? one light & one sunlight
Is there a basking light? yes
Is there a basking platform that is easy to climb on? yes
What kind is it or what is it made out of? Zoo Med Turtle Tough Bulb
Is there a UVB light? Natural Sunlight

What have you been trying to feed it? ReptoMin & Green Leaf Lettuce
When was the last time your turtle ate? Yesterday

How big is the tank/pond/enclosure? 100 Gallons
Is the tank near a window? yes outside on backporch
Is the tank in a room with a lot of activity? no

Have you read the Basic Care section? yes
Have you searched the forums for similar situations? yes

Is there any other unusual activity/symptoms? No

My female RES Speedy seems to be having shedding problems, she has never shed scutes like my male Jaws. She also has a small white spot that I think might be shell rot. She has always lived with Jaws in the same conditions since I got her. She also has the same diet as Jaws and he just shed scutes this spring.The pond has two basking platforms, one with a light bulb for six hours a day and one in sunlight for about four hours a day I'm really worried about her. Any help would be wonderful.

[blackforces get you]

i really dont know. but i think its shell rot

[Krzyspam]

That looks a lot like what my turtle had. I brought her to the vet and they picked off parts of her shell and then gave me wash to clean her shell with for a week or two. I brought her back once after that for a check up and the infection was much better. You can still see some of the damage almost a year later, but with every shedding, it gets a little better. Don't know if this helps or not, but good luck, and maybe you should get your turtle to the doctor.

[Dein211]

most of the flakey is her getting ready to shed but the green is alarming. it looks like a fungus or infection. i'd take her to the vet if possible and i'd quarenteen her becasue it might be contagious. also i would highly suggest getting a UVB bulb if they are indoors. UVB can't penatrate glass. a 5.0 UVB will be sufficiant.

[jawsspeedymrt]

The green is algae from living in an outdoor pond. My pond is outdoors but is screened in. As for the shell rot, is there anything I can do without a trip to the vet? I'm kind of in in a cash fix due to our dog's medical bill after being bit by a cottonmouth.

[xsavingsaturdayx]

I've treated shell rot before, it's not that hard to cure and depending on how bad it is, it doesn't always signal a trip to the vet.

When my turtles got it, I used hibiclense - you can get this stuff from any pharmacy for about 5 - 10 bucks. Next, what you're going to do is something called "dry docking", meaning you put the turtle in a dry box with some towels and apply some hibiclense on the shell. During this time, the turtle should be kept out of the water and only put back for an hour or two a day to eat and drink until the shell rot goes away. But this might not work, and if the shell rot doesn't go away, or get better in about a month, then go to the vet.

[SpotsMama]

Jawsspeedymrt, I think you are right about Speedy needing to shed scutes. It looks like there are layers that have loosened but not come off, and water has gotten underneath them and allowed the algae to grow. The problem is that infection may have also set in underneath the retained scutes. Sometimes shell rot does have a whitish look.

What does her plastron look like? Most of the cases of shell rot I've seen have started on the plastron.

When you press on the whitish areas, does any water leak out? Is the shell soft where it looks white?

If what she has is shell rot, the problem may be that any medication you put on her shell won't reach the infection because it is underneath the retained scutes. That's the sort of situation a good herp vet will need to address.

Shell infections thrive in water, so dry docking or lots of basking under good UVB light is essential to healing. It's hard to overstate the importance of good basking under good light - natural sun is the very best. If one turtle has shell problems and one does not, they may simply have different body chemistry but it may also be that one is basking more than the other.

Any turtle that's having trouble shedding scutes will benefit from having more vitamin e in his/her diet. Here are some good foods for turtles that contain vitamin e:

Tomato
Sweet potato
Turnip greens
Blueberries
Apple skin

Most turtles are particularly fond of a little steamed sweet potato.

Good luck. Keep us posted. If you wind up taking her to see a vet (and that's what I'd do), here's one caution. If the vet offers to give a vitamin A shot, first make sure the vet is positive your turtle really needs vitamin A and then discuss other alternatives to shots with the vet like eye drops with vitamin A, cod liver oil or food supplements. Several turtles have recently had very bad reactions to vitamin A shots and I think it's best that if vitamin A is needed (and often it's not) the safer methods be used instead.

[blackforces get you]

for some reason (this response will not help so dont bother reading this) i feel like chiseling the scutes off. i dont recommend it but i just have the urge. can they feel it when you actually peel that stuff off? (even though its bad to peel them off)

[SpotsMama]

I assume you don't literally mean chisel off a scute. You probably mean you want to peel it off.

The problem is the layers stick together, so if you pull on a part that's loosened you may also pull off the underneath layer that it's stuck to. Then you have a problem. Not only is the shell damaged but if it's torn off too deep then bone is exposed and open to infection. We see it on here pretty often - someone pulls off a scute and all of a sudden there's bleeding and the white bone is exposed. And yes, a turtle can definitely feel it when his shell is injured that way. It hurts like heck.

If a scute is really very loose and it just takes a little gentle pull to get it off, then I suppose it won't hurt to help it along. Generally though, it's not advisable.

[blackforces get you]

like i said i dont advise it as well. but like spotsmama said, she needs more vitamin e

[jawsspeedymrt]

Alright, thank you so much for all the info. I'll get some hibbeclens and dry dock her with some vitamin e.