General Care Discussion :: hard water ruining shell

[cameron740]

sorry to start another post again but im concered...my baby turtle squirts shell is getting ruened from hard water and one of my other babies shell is too but he has no detail on his shel...its turing all white and ik its not shell rot or fungus because it smells fine and its deffinetly hard water..he is starting to shed too...but how do i get rid of hard water

[cameron740]

anybody? plz im concered

[devilduck]

Unfortunately there is not much you can do about hard water except switch to bottled or RO. It should not hurt them but it is pretty ugly.
Can you post some pictures?

[mantis]

i have heard that aquarium salt will help. not sure if its true but i use it. i put it in a little beta cup with a lid with holes that my kids got. i replace the aquarium salt when i do a full tank clean.

[devilduck]

I would not use salt in a turtle tank unless it is for a short soak to remove fungus or parasites.

Salt will increase the hardness of the water. Hard water is water with a lot of dissolved minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron when the water evaporates it leaves these minerals behind as a white-ish crust. You can get it off with a mild acid like lemon juice or white vinegar. You can try using those and a toothbrush to get it off of the turtle's shell.

The two ways to make hard water less hard is with a water softener, which swaps out the calcium and magnesium with sodium or by removing dissolved minerals all together with a reverse osmosis (RO) filter, which puts out pure water. You can get a basic RO filter for around $120.

[cameron740]

where can i get a RO filter and water soffiner

[steve]

Shell fungus has no smell. 99% of the time it's fungus... can you post a picture?

[devilduck]

Steve makes a good point, make sure it is not fungus first.

[cameron740]

ok i will post some tmrw

[cameron740]

i was also wondering if i could use a pond filter in my tank bcuz thry r bigger and cheaper

[justatwinturbo]

I disagree Steve, in the 20 years I've bed keeping and breeding turtles, the vast majority of time, it's hard water stains. A lot of what people here call fungus, is nothing more than stains that will come off when the turtle sheds. It's most common in basking turtles, especially graptemys and trachemys

[cameron740]

ok thanks