4 months ago, a breeder came to my work and sold me and 3 of my co-workers baby RES. 13 total.
I bought one, we named him frank and he has THRIVED since.
.
I recently took over my co-workers RES as he did not want to take care of her anymore.
We know she was not well kept. (in a small dish with a male res no lamp no heat water changed once a week)
he is triple her size. we figure she's malnutritioned.
The first week we kept her in a 10 gallon tank with a basking area and uva lamp to keep her seperate from our other turtle in case she was sick. we noticed she swam weird with her butt up in the air. as well as sneezing (only twice observed) Looking online we saw that it could be sign for RI.
But,
the Second week, she was starting to swim better though basked excessively and was active. We noticed from time to time here eyes "bulging up" when she basked, but when we would remove her and put her a warm bath in what we use for feeding her we wouldn't see it anymore and thought the light was playing tricks or it just went away.
About 4 days later seeing she was acting normal, eating and eyes nice and clear we moved her into Frank's old tank 15 gallon. and him into a large rubber maid container. He is still doing fine, though isn't as socialable as he used to be.
the next day comming home from work, i noticed her on her log one of her legs was curled under awkwardly can't explain and her eyes were swollen shut.
I work at an optometrist office and have a lot of different eye drops around. I put a little saline solution highly diluted in warm water and dabbed her eyes with a q-tip then put her in warm water. for 2 days we have been dabbing her eyes 3 times daily with a purified water eye solution used for flushing out eyes. and soaking her in warm water with a little bit of pedialyte incase she needs the extra electrolytes.
Today (the third day) we put some vitamin A on a cotton swab and dabbed it on her eyes. let it sit for a bit and then back in the warm water. then back to the 15 gallon tank. Still with no progress.
we took her outside and set her in the sun thinking maybe it would help. and it DID. she started opening her eyes. they were reddish and kinda goey at first. but after blinking a couple times. they cleared up! completley!
so we took her back in after a bit and put her in the 15 gallon tank.. she had them open for a while. then after an hour we checked on her again and they were swollen and shut. we left for school and came back. still swollen shut.
so we took her out and put her in the 10 gallon tank with no water and started opening them up again! after 10 mins of blinking and opening and closing here eyes were open and bright!
after an hour we changed the water in the 15 gallon let it filter and put her back. her eyes are closed again. though it's midnight and time sleep anyhow.
We have an appt with a vet comming up in the next few days. But we really need some insight. Please help?
*NOTES*
She eats very well, even when she couldn't see the food she would still eat it. We put multi-vitamins in her food and she eats a special hatchling formula with all the vitams needed.
10 gallon- cleaned water every other day. Cuttle bone piece dropped in and a water conditioner.
15 gallon - 4 snails, basking log, proper filter, 2 live plants safe for RES to eat and live with, cuttle bone and water conditioner. All the same things our turtle lived and thrived with.
we don't feed her in her tank usually, occasionally we will but to keep water clean we put her in a small container to eat.
