Urgent Care :: Sick?

[fentanyl36]

turtle wont move in habitat and even when taken out of aquarium. he was never like this when bought. hes still small and theres no uv lights and im using tap water. the habitat is boring and just has rocks in a small cage as it was when i purchased. would a different habitat make him better or is something else wrong?

[SpotsMama]

A turtle lacking energy is called lethargic. Lethargy is a key symptom of illness. The other thing that can cause lethargy is temperatures that are too cool. If he's small his water temp should be around 78 degrees. In either case, a little turtle should be very active and jumpy and if he's not, you are right to be concerned.

Is he eating?

It's hard to advise about the setup without knowing more detail. Have you read up on this site all the info on a good turtle habitat? That's the place to start. Read up on all the links at the top of the page, then you'll probably have questions and you can come back and we'll talk.

When you get ready, pictures of the habitat would be very helpful.

[fentanyl36]

honestly the reason im so vague on this situation is because its not my turtle and my girlfriend has been crying over it for awhile. seems like fatigue but honestly i think she bought it thinking she could just take minimal care of it and leave it as is as long as she cleaned water and fed. which i dont think is fare. what should i do? i dont know temp of water. could that really be the only problem?

[SpotsMama]

Possibly the temp is what's causing the lethargy, but if I had to guess I'd bet the turtle is sick from poor conditions. They are rather delicate when they are young. Sadly, this is a familiar story. People don't realize what it takes to keep a healthy turtle until it's too late.

The very first thing to do would be to raise the temp if it's too low. If a little turtle is sick, the water temp needs to be around 82 degrees. That's the first thing to do.

Can you ask your girlfriend to come on the forum so we can talk to her directly? We can help - assuming the turtle is not so sick he can't survive - but she needs to understand that things will have to change if she's going to save him. She'll have to spend some money and work at it. Once the setup is in place, then taking care of a turtle is easy and fun but it takes some effort to get there.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.