Urgent Care :: My turtle is acting different

[passionflwr]

How big is your turtle? 4.5"
How long have you had it? 4-5 Years

What is the water temperature? About 76-78°
Did you use a thermometer? Yes
Are you using a water heater? Yes
How much water is in there? It's a 65 gallon tank, water is filled up about 3/4... About 20" inches of water high.
Are you using a water conditioner? Yes, but I have to estimate how much to use.
Are you using any filtration? Yes, two AquaClear filters

What is the basking temperature? Between 85-90°
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?
Is there a UVB light? Yes, it's a 10.0 which I read may be too strong so I moved it further away. Although, I've read in other places that 10.0 is good.

What have you been trying to feed it? Green Leaf Lettuce and Reptomin
When was the last time your turtle ate? I did see her eat some Reptomin this morning.. but that was the first time I've seen her eat anything in a couple days.

How big is the tank/pond/enclosure? 65 Gallon
Is the tank near a window? No
Is the tank in a room with a lot of activity? The living room, but it never bothered her or the other turtle before

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

Is there any other unusual activity/symptoms?

Ok so I've read way back in this forum and I just wanted advice on my particular situation even though it is somewhat similar to other peoples' situations. My turtle that I'm worried about is Slip. I have another turtle with her named Slide. They both appear to me to be females. I got them together as hatchlings and I've had them for 4-5 years now.

Slip has recently (in the past 3 days) started to act a little different than usual. She is hanging out at the bottom of the tank a lot. She comes up when I put food in but just swims back and forth like crazy and acts as if she doesn't even see the food. I've never had a problem with her eating before. Also, when I go to pick her up, she FLIPS out. She NEVER did this before. She is usually the calm one to hold...

Do you think the problem could be RI? I've never known too much about this but the other posts in this forum seem like RI could be the answer. I've read that not all symptoms appear at first. Overall, Slip looks just fine and perfectly healthy. But her activity level has dropped. I have not seen either one of them bask in the past week, although they usually do this when I'm at work.. but I haven't even caught them basking lately. Slide seems ok.

Could it be something OTHER than RI? The water temperature (as I mentioned above) is about 76-78° so I don't think that is causing the lack of appetite or lack of activity.

I also don't think this is a case of bullying. They have always lived together and Slide may be a little bit bigger (by about an inch) but she has never exactly bullied Slip. The only thing Slide is doing right now is going over to Slip and checking her out to see what's wrong.

I have a vet that treats my rabbit and I read that he also treats turtles.. I'm going to call after I get home from work in an hour and see how experienced he is. I just wanted to see what you guys thought.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[steve]

Do you think it's possible that your turtle is gravid? Is the swimming erratic (circling, listing, etc)?

I'm not initially thinking RI, but she does seem agitated.

[passionflwr]

I wouldn't say the swimming is quite that erratic. I mean, she's swimming back and forth and sometimes gets spooked and swims really fast. But she isn't swimming in circles or sideways or anything like that.

If this is not RI, the only other thing I can think of is stress. It just so happens that Saturday we did a 50% water change. I wanted to condition the water as it was going in so I took them out and put them in a separate container (I'm not sure if water conditioners can hurt them if they are in the tank at the time). They have been in this container before. It had about 1-1 1/2" of water in it. Every time they are in the container they want out, so that is nothing abnormal. This time, though, I noticed that after a little while, they had really fouled up the water. Usually it's just a little bit, but it was A LOT. Do you think that for some reason she got extra stressed this time and that is what is going on right now?

I scheduled an appointment with the vet but can't get there until Monday afternoon. If something appears worse before then, I will make sure I get in but the Doctor though that Monday should be ok. Although, I'm hoping she starts to act normal so that we don't have to make the trip to the vet because I'm sure it will be quite costly.

[passionflwr]

Sorry, I didn't know what "gravid" meant so I looked it up. So, you're asking if she could be pregnant? Well both of them look like females to me. The claws are not as extremely long as shown on Austin's Turtle Page (and that's what I've been going by). Is there any way of me figuring this out on my own? I've had them together for 5 years (got them together as hatchlings) so I would've thought if they were male/female, I would've known by now.

I've learned a lot over the years but I certainly wouldn't consider myself an expert.

[passionflwr]

Ok, just read more.. so a female turtle can carry eggs whether or not she's mated with a male. Wow. I never knew that. Holy cow. Do you really think that this is what's going on?