General Care Discussion :: Is my turtles shell rotting?

[kortneyerin]

Back in June my mom bought my son a baby res, without consulting me first or getting any of the necessities needed for his habitat. I still have yet to get a filter, a submersible heater or a UVB light. I did however manage to get a tank (not sure of the gallon size it's about 30 inches in length and 13 inches in height and 12 inches wide) and a basking dock. I use lights that I have from my lizards. One is red and the other is white. Right now my fiancé and I have are raising our three children on one income and we live paycheck to paycheck. This week I'll have about a hundred dollars to spend on Razor (our res) and I was going to get the UVB light and filter. Unless you all suggest getting the heater first? I change the tank water every two days and I take him out in the sun for 15-30 minutes just about everyday since I don't have the proper lighting. Recently I have noticed that when he is under the water his shell looks like it tiny whitish/silverish spots, but when I take him out the spots are non existent. I've been searching the web for days now and the only answer I got was from someone on yahoo and they said that it doesn't sound like shell rot just yet, but it will happen eventually if I don't get the things I stated above. Is his shell rotting? Please any help is very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Also I posted a few pics that I took of Razor yesterday on to Flickr. Here's the link:
http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/100860696@N06/

[Diamondbacks4Life]

Id go with heater and uvb light first. If you can handle changing the water weekly still its fine to run without a filter while they are small. If you buy a filter now for that size tank it will just outgrow it and produce more waste then that filter can handle. You will hve wasted $20-30 on a filter you will probably never use again and have to buy another larger one. Another money saving tip. You can just use regular household bulbs around 65watt-75 watt for heat.

As for the white specks. Try brushings its shell with a soft bristle tooth brush. It could be fungus but it doesn't look like it. Defiantly isn't shell rot though. Keep the water really clean and make sure the turtle is basking. If the white spots start to spread or become larger. Dry dock the turtle. Keep him out of the water for a few hours and apply an antiseptic cream like Neosporin to the spots.

[kortneyerin]

I haven't been to the pet store yet to price everything, but I did look online at Petco and Pet Smart just to get an estimate on how much I'll be spending and the filter I saw was $80. If its only $20 or 30 then I may be able to get everything depending on the cost of the heater. I do clean him with a toothbrush once every week and I really don't think it's fungus from pics I have seen of other turtles with it, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I just pointed it out to my son and had him look at the turtle while under the water and he said it looks like little bubbles. When he said that it reminded of a post I read about shedding. Is that possible in baby res? Sorry if I'm a little over dramatic, but this is my first turtle and it just really freaked me out seeing his shell looking like that. I'm probably reading too much into it. Also thanks for the quick response @doamondbacks4life.

[ljapa]

I I just pointed it out to my son and had him look at the turtle while under the water and he said it looks like little bubbles. When he said that it reminded of a post I read about shedding. Is that possible in baby res?

My son's RES shed quite a bit when she was a similar size to yours.

I really could not see what you were talking about in your pics, but shedding is very likely. I've not experienced any fungus, but from what I've read, you will still see something when out of the water.

Does it follow the edges of the scutes?

[kortneyerin]

@ljapa it isn't present all of the time and only when he's under water. Really weird! I usually see it in the creases of his shell and they look like tiny pin drops. I guess it really didn't show in the pics. The best pic I have of it is the very first pic I uploaded on Flickr. It's on the second page.

[ljapa]

Not sure if this link will work, but I do see them when I look at that second pic at its original size:

http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/100860696@ ... 5/sizes/o/

It's air bubbles. When your turtle dives underwater, some of the air forms small bubbles and sticks to the shell. They're held on by surface tension, so you'll see them more frequently sticking to the rougher parts between scutes.

Absolutely nothing to worry about.

EDIT: and it's even more clear in that first picture

http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/100860696@ ... 1/sizes/o/

Definitely air bubbles.

[kortneyerin]

Omg! I can really see it when the pics are enlarged. That's crazy that my ten year old could see it, but I couldn't. Lol. I must admit I'm practically blind in my left eye from not wearing my eye patch and glasses as a kid.

Also I went out today and bought a small 5 gallon submersible heater and a 30" tropical UVB strip light. Should I leave it on all the time or just during the day? Hopefully I can put off on the filter for two weeks. I have to say idk where all of this waste comes from. I only feed him one pellet every two days and I take him out of the tank when I do that.

I swear all these pets I have are as much work as my kiddies. Also sorry if I'm being a pain with all the questions, but I have one last one. Is it normal for them to eat air bubbles? He's been doing it a lot lately. Again, thanks for all your help! ❤

[ljapa]

Yes the waste is very impressive. I remember when my son's turtle was about the size of yours and I saw her poop. Wow!

Biting air bubbles is pretty normal in my experience.

Turtles need the UVB when they are basking, and only during the day. You're replacing the UVB they get from the sun.

The main site has some great info on basking/lighting.

http://www.redearslider.com/index_lighting_basking.html

And lots of other stuff.

One minor thing to watch: with a strip UVB, it's possible it can be too close to the basking area and be too strong. I've never had that problem because I haven't used strip lighting. From what I've read, one of the main signs would be eye irritation. If you see that, you should figure out some way to raise the light a bit.

As to the filter, particularly if the budget is tight, you may want to wait and get something oversized. Your turtle will grow quickly the first year or two and that aquarium will need to get bigger. Like diamonbacks4life said, you don't want to waste your money on a filter sized for that tank only to find that tank, only to find it won't work in a larger tank you'll need soon.

But that larger tank needn't be an aquarium. Many have used a plastic bin from Walmart. You want to make sure your turtle has space for swimming. They need to be able to get out of the water completely to bask. They need UVB and heat to encourage basking. The larger the water volume the better, both for quality of life but also because the larger water volume dilutes the waste more, meaning cleaning and water changes don't need to be as frequent. You need a heater to keep the water temp from dropping too low.

You're on the right path. You've found the right place to get help and support.

The only other suggestion I'd add now is to introduce some vegetables now. In the wild, as a RES gets older it transitions from a carnivorous diet to a much more vegetarian one. It's actually unhealthy for an older REs to have the high protein diet a young RES has. Many keepers have difficulty with that transition because they wait too long and then try to convert them.

Keep feeding the turtle pellets, but float some lettuce (green or red leaf, not iceberg) in the tank. It will probably be ignored. That's ok. Fish it out after a few hours. Hopefully, some bites will be eaten. At the size you have now, it doesn't matter if not much is eaten. What you want is to get the turtle used to something besides pellets, so that in a year or so, when you start making vegetables a larger portion of the diet, those vegetables are recognized as food.

[kortneyerin]

Awesome! thanks for all of your input. You've been so helpful. Actually I've already given red and green leaf lettuce a couple of times and he seemed to really liked ot, but i did notice a lot more waste. As far as my set up goes I mentioned the tank measurements above. Now I've only been filling the tank up to about four inches. The heater is only a five gallon one and has a minimum fill line which about six inches. I've been afraid to fill it up too high. I don't want to risk him drowning. I don't have anything fancy in his tank yet. No decorations. Just his basking dock and a couple of stones on the bottom. His shell size is only about one and a half inches. I read that it should be ten gallons per inch of shell. Is that really true?

[ljapa]

I wouldn't worry about your turtle drowning. A RES in the wild is in a pond measured in thousands or tens of thousand s of gallons. When mine was at your size, she was in a 20 gallon filled to the top because I had an above tank basking area. I did add some decorations so she could rest in shallower water, but I think she would have been fine without them.

The 10 gallons per inch rule is a pretty good guideline. Given your tank dimensions, you have a 20 gallon tank. You can extend its usefulness with an above tank basking area. Search this site for ATBA. You don't have to go out and buy another when your turtle is 2 inches long, but you will need something larger. I moved to a 55 gallon, which isn't large enough for a full grown RES, but should last for a few years. I picked it up at PetcCo during their $1 per gallon sale for $55, and I got a stand for it off Craigslist for another $50.

My RES is a female, which probably means at least a 125 gallon tank, but since they are only 18 inches front to back and a large female RES can be 12 inches long, not counting head or tail, I'd really like to get a 180 gallon, which is 24 inches. But I think I have a year or two at least. I've been watching Craigslist for that incredible deal--and watching my wife for the time when I can buy it without too much pain.

You'll outgrow the 20 gallon in less than a year. I'd suggest looking at heaters/filters, etc... That will work in a larger tank. No sense in spending the money on something now that you'll have to replace next year.

[kortneyerin]

Cool! I was looking on YouTube at turtle videos and this guy had 200 gallon tank which pretty much took up his entire living room. I thought, "Omg! That thing is HUGE!" If i loved down south in the warmer states and had the money, I would totally look onto having a pond made in my yard. That would be awesome! My mom bought my son our turtle a couple of weeks after his other grandmother bought him and my youngest daughter each a leopard gecko. So I've been up to my neck with buying all the supplies needed for all of these pets. We also have two cats and four hermit crabs. Now we have four aquariums with pets. I'm thinking that after the holidays ill look into investing in a nice tank with a stand that is pretty large and will last me for a few years. I'll post a pic on my Flickr page so you can see my tank setup. It's nothing fancy at all. As for the above tank basking area, well I'm not familiar with that at all. I'm definitely gonna research it now.