Urgent Care :: Urgent: Shell Condition / Please Help

[Styptic]

Brief story of my res


My girlfriend bought a slider 14 years ago. He was kept in a small tank under the window (no UV-B, no water heating or lamps) He was fed only meat. I came in about a year ago and fell in love with both of them. Dardanus, the RES had a bumpy shell, and his growth was stunned, but he looked fine. When I came home one day he was on his rock completely white and the window was open. I decided it can not be that way and I got him a bigger tank, provided him a basking area (regular light, UV coming soon), water filtering and circulation and a water heating (kept at 25 Celsius / 77F) as well. Also drop vitamins and Ph regulator. I also keep a cuttlebone in the tank. (he doesn’t care about it). After this freezing he became very soft, squeezy and squashy. I believe he went through a fungal infection, which I cured by increasing his water temperature (kept at 22 Celsius / 71.5F at first) and adding a bit of sea salt into the water and by salt bath every day. Dardanus began to grow. His legs grew in size maybe twice. He also got on weight because he is being fed every other day with various plants, vegetables, egg crust, eggs, fish (frozen/live), meat and some flies and worms. As a consequence his shell needed to expand a bit so I provided him plenty of calcium. And now coming out of nowhere a piece of his shell began to weaken, it moves and today when the top layer scraped off because of the airin between the shell layers … it had holes in it. I keep him dry for 4 hours a day and I apply betadine. I fear the worst, but I believe the UV might help. See the photos of him, his tank and shell disease, and If you know ho to help him, please let me know.

Thank You for taking your time to read,

[marisa]

Welcome.

He still has no UVB light? If all he has is a regular light (good for warmth, but not UVB rays), you can give him all the calcium you want and he won't metabolize it. Where does the calcium in his diet come from?

Where is the shell weakening---the marginal scutes (the ones around the edge of the shell) or somewhere on the shell itself? In the third pic, the shell looks like some of those scutes may shed. Do they depress at all if you gently press on them? Does water seep out from under them? (the shell looks bumpy, btw.)

It would be good to stop the meat and flies.

[Caphits]

Pellets and veggies from now on. Cut out all that high protein stuff.

You really NEED UVB. They arent that expensive online. Check out the petsmart repti glo 5.0 bulb.
You should also get that water level raised, and get a basking light(I use a simple flood lamp $5 dollars at hardware store) to get the temp of basking to about 88 degrees.

He will start to crave the calcium once he gets the UVB im guessing.

It sounds like he has shell rot to me.


Good luck!

[Kemul]

Here are my suggestions:

1. Cut back on the protein (meat, flies, eggs, fish, worms). Offer veggies daily and use pellets every other day instead. The meat etc should be offered as
treats only, perhaps monthly at this point. Too much protein causes pyramiding,
as can be seen by the bumps on the shell. At that age, vegetable should be
the main diet.

2. Get a UVB bulb. Or, since summer is coming, you can bask your turtle under
the sun daily if you have the time.

3. Get a bigger tank. Or raise the water level of your current tank. Provide a
basking area so that your turtle's shell and plastron (underside) can dry up while
basking.

I'm not familiar with shell conditions, but I know Spotsmama treated her turtle
successfully before. I'm sure she can help.

Good luck!

[RyanJ]

He's a cute fella He'd love you forever if you got him a bigger tank- if a larger tank costs too much right now, a Rubbermaid would be just as good. RES are beautiful swimmers and they deserve the space to do so. Definitely switch to pellets and veggies, supplemented with calcium in the form of cuttlebone (cheap and easy, just peel the backbone off and break it into small pieces). The UVB light is very important too, it'll strengthen his shell and help him metabolize better. All in all he seems pretty good for the diet he's had, minus the shell. Good luck!

[Styptic]

Thank You all ... I really did not expect anybody to reply that soon.

I found many things useful. I will tune up his home, put a basking area on the top of the aquarium, with proper UVB, raise the water level and change his diet. I hope he will be fine. If so I will post some update.

I appreciate your replies, You are nice people, You are saving my friends life.

[SpotsMama]

Good for you for bringing his habitat up to standard.

Could you provide a couple of photos of his shell when it's completely dried out? In addition to the pyramiding and developing metabolic bone disease (resulting from lack of UVB), I'm wondering about some of the white on the shell. Could be from fungus on the shell.