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Is this permanent when caught early?

My RES are beginning to pyramid slightly. I am reducing both the feedings and the protein content of the feedings starting today. (I noticed the pyramiding today when i went to check the health of the turtles).

I feed my RES red lettuce, carrot greens, dandelion occaisonally, turtle food sticks, crickets, and guppies (when they can catch them). The RES also take out the odd apple snail every once in a while.

Lettuce and turtle food sticks (50/50) is the main staple of their diet. Guppies are always there due to the turtles inability to catch them often. Crickets are rare.

The damage is permanent, but will appear to lessen as the turtle grows...if that makes sense. If you have caught it in the early stages, as the turtle grows the affects of the pyramiding will stay the same size...thus appearing less.

How old is your turt? If over six months, you can go ahead and cut back to the pellets once every other day. More veggies are ok, and the lettuce is harmless unless overfed. You'll know, cause you turtle will get the runs, lol.

Can you post a pic?

If it's slight pyramiding and caught on a young turtle, I think it won't be as noticeable when they're older. Scutes do shed and it may take a lot of cycles before there is any improvement.

missibsu wrote:...lettuce is harmless unless overfed. You'll know, cause you turtle will get the runs, lol.

Oh man, today was a bad day for Mr. Water Changer!

steve wrote:\

missibsu wrote:...lettuce is harmless unless overfed. You'll know, cause you turtle will get the runs, lol.

Oh man, today was a bad day for Mr. Water Changer!

LOL! I shouldn't laugh, I wouldn't want to clean it, but it's still funny. I've never had a turtle with the runs, but when I got my new xp3 filter it changed some things in my tank. If a turtle pooed and it got under the output, it would just blast it into a million pieces. Really gross to watch.

See Maplesquirrels post for pictures of my turtles. I confused the posts. Or, go here: My turtle photo album

How much the damage can be rectified depends on how young the turtle is. If the turtle is young and the condition caught early, the better the chances for a big improvement.

I don't notice anything unhealthy about the turts shells that you posted in your photo album. The peak of the shell should be higher, it's the individual scutes that you should be worried about and they look smooth.

Okay,

Maybe they are smooth. It does look like they are about to shed. I just noticed a slight bumpyness in areas. It looked to me like the shell was just beginning to pyramid.

They may get the slightly raised look if they are getting ready to shed.

This isn't a great picture, but you can see some growth rings on this box turtle
http://www.animalnetwork.com/reptiles/d ... 96&search=

Those rings can also be an indicator of too much growth too fast.

Mine turts have slight rings like that, but I've had mine a year and they haven't shed.