Urgent Care :: Weird Behavior and Something New in Water. Help?

[Cimima]

My RES is acting a strange. It was fine all day up until about 30 minutes ago when it started acting crazy like it was trying to jump out of the water.

I have never seen my turtle move its legs so quickly and with such force. It settled down a minute or two after, so I didnt think much more about it then about 10 minutes later I looked in the tank and saw something brown on the basking dock, it was about an inch or so long and kinda looked like a tootsy-roll, only thinner.

I removed the object which smelled bad. When I returned to the tank I noticed more like this floating in the water, when i tried to remove the ones in water they broke apart.

I have no clue what this is, it has never been in the tank before. Now my turtle is resting on an underwater dock with its head sticking out of the water and it seams kind of weak. It attempted to move to the basking dock but almost seemed unable to get up it even though it has an easy underwater ramp. It just went back to the other dock. Can anyone help me out? Im worried.

[jenaero]

How big is your turtle? My first guess is that what you found is poop. Especially if it broke apart. Was the piece on the dock solid?

[DavidY]

hmm...maybe he was having a hard time going poop and after he did, it tired him out?

[steve]

How big is the tank and what is the water temp?

[Cimima]

My turtle is 2 1/2in. long. He lives in a 10 gallon tank, the temp is at 76. I bought him when he was only about the size of a half dollar, and Ive had him for 5 months, he has seemed fine until recently. The brown stuff that I found on the dock was mushy, so I thought maybe he'd had vomitted his tank got extremely dirty over night, much faster than usual.

[steve]

Have you ever seen your turtle's poop before? If not, then it sounds like this is the first time you are seeing it. its possible for them to vomit, though whatever they expel would be similar to what they had recently eaten.

Is there any gravel in the tank? Any other symptoms?

[Cimima]

I cant say that I have acually seen it before, I have seen some other substance come out of it but it did not look like this. It was much lighter and less uniform. He is less active than usual, and seems unwilling to go to the basking dock.Hopefully it is nothing, I was just worried because I have never seen this brown stuff before and have never seen so much of anything in his tank other than food debris. My turtle was fed a different kind of food yesterday than what I usually feed him, I tried feeding it this in the beginning but it seemed like it wouldnt eat it, I kept the food anyway, and yesteday I someone else fed my turtle and gave him that food. Could it have made my turtle sick or maybe made it have an unsual reaction to it?

[airgetsthinner]

no this is definately poop, my turtles have pooped on me soooo many times that i could probably point poop out from a mile away hahaha. and youve probably never seen it before cause most of the time it breaks up and sinks or they eat it. but congratulations on your findings

[SpotsMama]

Sounds like maybe he's had an attack of diarrhea. I'd probably throw that other food away. Is he at all interested in his usual food?

[Cimima]

My turtle has been fine today, acting normal, basking. Thanks.

[DavidY]

That's good to hear!

[laturcotte]

Caboose who I have had for 2 years poops the size poop you would expect from a turtle at 2 then I got Gamera who pooped in the water and it was huge. As a matter of fact I scooped it out when I saw it and dropped it in the toilet in went plunck!!! Glad he don't fly!!!