Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 7:03 pm Red Eared Slider not holding in air
45 year old female RES, have had it for 3 years. She is not holding air inside, she stands on her back legs and extends her neck out of the water to breathe and then shortly after submerging all of it comes back out in bubbles. She is not swimming, she is hanging out at the bottom, and seems to struggle to float in the water. This happened after the water heater came unplugged and the water was unheated for a week. The water temperature was sustained at 77 degrees before the heater went off, after it was off the temperature was at 71 degrees while I was on vacation. Her temperature has been back up for 24 hours now to 80 degrees, and I have not seen a change in this behavior or symptoms. She is in 75 gallons of water, with the entire aquarium filled, she has an exterior basking platform that is easy to climb onto, with UVB/UVA and a Basking Lamp. Her filtration is solid, with an FX5 and 25% water changes every 2 weeks. The basking area is very warm and before her behavior changed she was basking often. She has not been basking for a while. She has a diet mostly of green and red leaf lettuce, and a couple times a week I will feed her pellets or dried shrimp. Her appetite has diminished, she last ate a couple days ago. Her enclosure is not near any sunlight, and she is in a quiet room with little activity. On another side note, she had eggs 3 months ago, and layed them in the water and on the basking platform. My veterinarian was shocked that a turtle this old had eggs. She hasn't shown signs of mucus or bubbles coming out of her nose while out of the water, which is typical with respiratory infections. When I hear her breathe, it sounds like her airways are clean.
