Urgent Care :: Trying to help a found turtle

[Mike311]

Hello, all. This is my first post, and Im sorry it has to be one asking for help, but after looking around online it seems that this is a great place to get in touch with people who have personal experience and expertise, so here I am.

I recently found what I now know is a red eared slider in my backyard. Its walled in and I have two dogs, on top of being in the middle of a city, so I have no idea the heck it got there, but I now have this little turtle and Im looking to get it healthy.

He(or she, Im not sure) has a shell which is about 6 or so inches long and almost the whole shell is covered in discolored spots. Ive been checking out sites all over the web and I now have him in a 50 gallon aquarium that was previously used for salt water fish. I built up a spot for him thats easy to get to and allows him to be totally out of the water and I added a normal light to warm the spot and bought a uvb bulb from my local pet store.(Reptiglo 5.0) which is about 10 inches above where he sits.

So, here is my game plan for treating this, but I thought id run it by you all:

-Clean shell with light scrubbing and salt. Rinse and let dry
-Clean shell with 2% nalvasin solution I bought online.(Wound cleaner type) Allow to dry and remain out of water over night or longer.
-Put back in water for an hour or so to drink and eat if he will.(Hes a picky eater it seems)
-Rinse and clean with nalvasin again, allow to dry
-apply Silver Sulfadiazine Cream I managed to get online with out a prescription
-Allow to remain out of water for 15 hours or so.
-Keep water clean and repeat

As far as food goes, Ive tried mostly store bought stuff like reptomin sticks and some more pellet looking food whos name I dont recall, but also found something called turtle brittle which seemed to have good reviews. Only problem is it seems to sink and he only seems to look for food on the surface.
Heres a pic of the little guy for reference. Any help or recommendations you have are appreciated:

-

[TravisL]

Looks as though he was overfeed by the previous owner. and shell seems to be in rough shape. The spots on his shell, are they moldy or rotting looking or is is just discoloured? hard to tell from picture but left side might be shell rot.
Try to use some foods that will promote shedding. Wheat germ food seems to help with that also some veggies do also.

Nice of you to take the turtle under your wing. If you can should try to post some picks of his head/face and under body too

[steve]

Hi Mike. It's mainly fungus I see, I can't tell of anything else from the quality of the picture. It's not common for wild RES to have fungus like this, any chance she was dumped in your yard?

[First do a simple scrub of the shell using warm water and a new toothbrush. Keep in mind they are strong and the person holding her will get scratched and possible bitten. They will obviously be slippery and might 'jump', so do not leave her unattended.]
-Clean shell with light scrubbing and salt. Rinse and let dry. [I have not tried salt before, perhaps use sea salt or salt without iodine]
-Clean shell with 2% nalvasin solution I bought online.(Wound cleaner type) Allow to dry and remain out of water over night or longer. [Do you mean nolvasan?] That should be OK
-Put back in water for an hour or so to drink and eat if he will.(Hes a picky eater it seems)
-Rinse and clean with nalvasin again, allow to dry
-apply Silver Sulfadiazine Cream I managed to get online with out a prescription [This will be the key. However, you can try to do this overnight instead of during the day as it would be less stressful.]
-Allow to remain out of water for 15 hours or so.
-Keep water clean and repeat

Are you intent on keeping her?