General Care Discussion :: Please help!

[rebecca14162]

Hi
I am completely new to turtles, 3 days new!
3 days ago neighbors wanted to get rid of their turtles. They have been living in a plastic tote for the last year. No filter, heater, conditioner, lights or anything but a rock and a few inches of water. I know nothing of turtles but we keep fish and this all didn't sound right to me. So I agreed to take them.
All I have found out is that they are both female RES. 1 is about 2in the other is about 3in.

Right now I have them in a 10g tank, a little under half full, conditioned water, filtered, heater and steps with a platform area.

They look like they have hard water deposits on their shells, on some areas. I read on here to use a toothbrush, but it didn't look like it made any difference.

I have been feeding them the pellets in the morning and red leaf lettuce at night. I remove what the do not eat.

I don't know what else they immediately need and what I can hold off on getting for a bit?

I don't know if I am doing any of this right, but we for sure want to keep them <3

[Diamondbacks4Life]

Id start by just going through and reading every page on redearslider basic info- health. Trust me its the best thing you can do. You eventually end up reading anyway if you avoid it lol.

Sounds like everything is good so far. Though you actually might be over feeding them already. Only susposed to feed them amount of pellets that can fit in their head if it were hollow. The one thats 3inchs probably should be cut down to being fed every other day on the pellets. The red leaf lettuce can be fed every day to him. The 2 inch one should still be fed pellets every day till he gets to 3inches so you gonna have to seperate them to feed the smaller one.

Also the sex of your turtle is still unknown. Turtle dont start showing sexual dimorphism till they are around 4inches. So until they are both 4inches they still have a chance to start showing they are males. Next could you take a pic of them. Im a little afraid of the shell condition you mentioned as it could be a fungus and not hard water deposits.

[rebecca14162]

Thank you for the food thing. I have searched everywhere and all I can find "feed only what they eat in about 3 minutes"!
But now I am worried about underfeeding them ??
The amount of pellets I was feeding them was about the size of the small ones head. For them to share. But then the red lettuce at night?
I took pictures but I am not sure how to put them on here, says the file is too big. But it looks like a white-ish then film, not bumpy at all. You can only see it when they are in the water.

I have been doing a lot of reading and getting advice from people I know with turtles. All contradicting

So if they are males, when would they start growing the scary claws?

[steve]

Do you mean this page? http://www.redearslider.com/pellets.html

[rebecca14162]

I had been reading on a lot of different sites. This one seemed to be the most knowledgeable.

[ataraxiamb]

Here is how to post photos: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1811

[rebecca14162]

http://s1125.beta.photobucket.com/user/ ... sort=3&o=0

[kerby]

that shell does not look good im definitely not the one to tell but it look as if you have shell rot or something. hopefully some of the more experienced members can suggest what to do with that but i would say find a herp vet and have them look at that

[rebecca14162]

damn... I googled it and the images look the same

[rebecca14162]

Before I try this... is this accurate?

http://www.turtlepuddle.org/health/shellrot.html

[steve]

From the spread pattern, this is fungus. I would treat it right away as it is still in a early stage. You will need to pick up some silver sulfadinze cream from a vet.

[kerby]

Told you! Steve is great :p now I learnd something

[rebecca14162]

This is very stressful
I went to PetsMart to get a floating rock thing. (I had to raise the water level when I realized the filter someone gave me was missing the suction cups and most of the water was just going right out the back and not being filtered, so now they have a hanging filter)
The guy at PetsMart (who said he has turtles) said that they were just shedding.

I just want them to be healthy I will take them to the vet as soon as I can. I hadn't foreseen these financial costs. I still need lights for them. But I am committed to my new babies!

[josephkr]

Just take it step by step. I'd trust the advice you get here over the PetSmart people, even if they have turtles. I've found the PetSmart people don't usually know as much as the people on this site.

[rebecca14162]

I looked in the forum and couldn't find anything relating to my question...

Since I cannot get any lights for them yet. I tried putting them outside to bask yesterday I live in Las Vegas. Its not hot here yet but it is pretty warm in the sun. They wouldn't chill out. So I put some steps in there and then they just went and hid underneath them?

I talked to my neighbor a little more about them. I guess they had gotten them at a swap meet back in 2010. Since then they have had those living conditions.

Are they sensitive to the light from never basking?!
or do they not know how? Something else? What is it? What should I do?