General Care Discussion

Hi all, I posted before about the two RES (a male and female) the Geo dept. at my school rescued from a boy who was keeping them in a 5 gallon bucket... They've been doing great (I hope. I'll get to that.)!!! It took some time for them to get used to being able to see and interact with their environment through the clear walls of the tank after living in that bucket, but now they've already learned to beg enthusiastically (as you'll see in the video...)

By the way, their names are now officially Lynn and Margulis, after a famous biologist who was the first to propose the theory of endosymbiosis. They're definitely nerd turtles lol

My question now is about Margulis' skin shedding. Starting shortly after moving him into the new tank, he started shedding his skin more and more. This isn't happening on Lynn, so it seems unlikely that it's environmental. Over the weekend it went from being mild flakes of skin peeling to billowing strands of it that look almost like a sunburn. They are white, and there is no pink visible anywhere on his skin that makes it look irritated. He doesn't seem bothered by it. Just SO MUCH peeling.

It was very hard to get a still picture because he is a little piglet and begs so much for food that pictures all come out too blurry to see the skin. Here is a video. At around 00:15 you can see the skin pretty well, it's literally coming off in billowing sheets.

Their water is about 77°F and the basking area is about 85-89°F. They have a Reptisun 5.0 UVB fluorescent tube that runs along the top of the tank, parallel to their cork bark basking platform, about 8" away from them vertically when they're sitting on the log. We've been feeding red lettuce and TetraFauna ReptoMin Floating Food Sticks in modest amounts on alternating days, and they don't like grapes.
I must also admit that yesterday Margulis ate a live Zebra Danio that I "saved" from dissection in the Biology department... :twisted:

Poor little Runty was supposed to be their friend... but, like I said. Margulis is a PIG!

So, thoughts on the skin shedding? Might it actually be a "sun"burn from the UVB light? Or something more sinister... :cry:

Bill is nearing the end of a heavy shed. I significantly cut back on how much I was feeding him, and raised the basking temp. He is nearly shed free a couple weeks later. I've heard it can be normal, can be from over-feeding, or it can be a skin infection.

I ... I love the names. That is brilliant.

Mine sheds skin but only little wispy bits at a time. I can't quite see how much more than that yours is shedding but I wouldn't worry if it's the thin, wispy kind.
Now I'll let the experts chime in since my worries are sometimes skewed and weird.

Sorry to bump an old post but are there any more opinions on this? Some say shedding is due to over feeding/warm water and some say it's normal? My turtle has some spots coming on the shell which I think are from the scutes starting to shed, so I started feeding her a few wheatgerm pellets as that's supposed to help. A week later and her skin is shedding loads, just like in original posts video! It's all wispy and thin but I'm worried it might be something else. Water is about 23 C and basking area about 28 C

For me, it seems to come in phases. How big are the turtles?

The shedding comes in phases you mean? My turtle is about 5".

Yes, skin shedding.

General Care Discussion :: New RES: How much skin shedding is normal?!

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