General Care Discussion :: Is my turtle okay??? :(

[GigaBitez]

My sister took home this turtle that was in air con childcare room with no basking lamp or basking dock and water was always cold. She dumped the turtle on me and expect me to take care of it and i dont have the heart to say no so i took her in, looks like a female. She seems overweight thats because she ate ALL of the fish in the tank, she was worse before but now have 'slimmed' down a bit but still overweight and i dont know whats wrong with the color of the shell? its brownish green, and shes 3 inch in length and 2 inches wide. not a very strong swimmer, i tried putting a water level where she has to swim up to the dock and she doesnt go up to the dock at all or only goes up to breathe which gets me worried. Now that i have lowered it she only basks for only a few minutes i dont know why. I thought of buying a bigger tank but supplies here is very hard to find since almost all aquatic reptiles are illegal here so supplies are like buried treasure so im trying my best, i finally got a basking lamp. I feed her nutri pellets that are high in calcium since its been raining here with minimum sunlight. Im really at lost here, I am researching so much about them that i realize i have to take out a lot of money and space for one wittle turtle despite being a struggling student but thats okay cuz im liking toto she has an adorable personality! So just wanna ask is she looks okay and she used to have soft shell but not anymore (knock on wood).

[AndreaF590]

Can you post a picture of her shell dry? When I first got my turtle he was in similar conditions. I raised the water level a little at a time and now he's swimming great. Make sure your water level is at least high enough that if your turtle flipped over it would be able to right itself. Hopefully your turtle will want to climb up and bask more now that you have a heating lamp. If the basking area isn't warmer than the water I don't think they have much desire to bask. If you don't have a heater for the water I would look into that. I got mine from Walmart. It's a tetra submersible heater and it wasn't too expensive. (Cheaper than my local petco) But I would also check on-line because I found a heater on-line that cost half as much as the same one at petco. Also look into getting a UVB light as well. It's important for a healthy shell.

Also, you should really get rid of the gravel.
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12532

[steve]

I think the turtle looks OK, but yeah cut down on the protein and live prey. It's good to be conservative with food. And do as Andrea says

Welcome to the forum!