Urgent Care :: res staying out of the water

[Lisa4christ]

Hi Hannah my RES is staying on the basking platform all the time. She is not going into the water very much at all. Even at night, she will stay long after the lights have gone off. She is usually up there when i go to bed around 10:00(no lights) and then up there when I check on her in the morning around 7:30 (lights are on). She keeps her eyes closed a lot of the time and rests her head on the basking area. She does move around to different areas of the basking area. I go by and talk to her and pet her and she wakes up and is groggy. She also has a lot of scutes that need to come off. Any thoughts on what is going on with her?
We keep our house temp low at night usually around 65-67.

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How big is your turtle? She is 7 inches
How long have you had it? 2.5 years

What is the water temperature? 75 F
Did you use a thermometer? yes
Are you using a water heater? yes
How much water is in there? 125 Gallons
Are you using a water conditioner? no
Are you using any filtration? yes--sump pump into a 55 gallon tank

What is the basking temperature? 85
Is there a basking light? yes
Is there a basking platform that is easy to climb on? yes
What kind is it or what is it made out of? above tank--self made--Plexiglass with a ceramic tile on the bottom
Is there a UVB light? yes

What have you been trying to feed it? yes she ate today after a primed her with a few mealworms--her appetite has changed--she usually needs no prompting
When was the last time your turtle ate? today

How big is the tank/pond/enclosure? 125 gallons
Is the tank near a window? yes
Is the tank in a room with a lot of activity? yes

Have you read the Basic Care section?
Have you searched the forums for similar situations? yes

Is there any other unusual activity/symptoms?

[steve]

Her behavioral changes could be due to the seasonal change, though I can't say that my turtles act the same way when winter comes around.

Have you had her since she was a hatchling?

[Lisa4christ]

yes we got her when she was very small. I was thinking the same that it could be seasonal. Our lights are controlled by the sun. As I am typing this, she is still up on the basking platform and the lights went off 2 hours ago. Her shell feels cool and she is sleeping.

[steve]

Is there a lot of room light? I'm not sure what you can try or if this just a phase. Maybe bump up the temperatures a bit.

[Lisa4christ]

not a lot of light, but there is a light on in the kitchen, we will turn that one off tonight. As far as i could tell, she stayed up there all night

[steve]

If you put her in the water, does she go back up? I'm not sure what else I would do, but keep some vet contacts handy in case other symptoms appear.

[Lisa4christ]

She will swim for a little while and climb back up.
What do you think about blocking the ramp at night?
she does have a vet she sees, so i will take her in if needed.

[unclejoe]

I have been following your thread, cause we are new to pet turtle ownership and we want to learn as much as possible. I don't know what someone more experienced would say about removing the ramp, but I am a big believer that animals know what they need and for some reason she needs to be out of the water and resting. Since this appears to be abnormal behaviour something else must be going on to cause her to do that, but I am wondering if by removing her ability to do that may stress her out more and cause more issues. Just my thinking,, as I said I don't have any experience with captive turtles, just wild ones.

Do you think maybe a picture of her on the basking dock and of her scutes may help someone with more experience to ascertain what may be going on with her? From reading your original post, it almost sounds like she is weak. Although we haven't had a captive bred turtle for long we have had years of observing wild turtles and I can't say I have ever seen one put its head down on the ground while basking.. They normally stretch them way out to get more sun.

[Lisa4christ]

Thank you for your reply unclejoe.
I felt it was odd that she has her head down as well.
Here is a picture of Hannah.

[unclejoe]

Are her eyes closed in this pic, cause it looks like they are too me.? I can't say anything about the shell other then I can't see the scutes peeling the way we saw the wild turtles in the pond scutes peel. Do you think she is sort of choosing to "Dry Dock" herself? I have been reading about this and sick turtles. If she is, I wonder what is making her feel so bad? She does look like she isn't happy, that she is uncomfortable. I know female turtles need to lay eggs at some point, but from what I read they usually get really ansy when this happens.. Is she still eating, and going the bathroom regularly?

btw we loved our RES' in the pond.. I feel so bad for her.. Wish I knew the answers

[Lisa4christ]

i wish i did too. Her eyes are closed i just put her on the floor and she is crawling around exploring. She is not eating as much as she has in the past. She did go after a mealworm I put in the water for her. She has just not seemed like herself for the past week or so. I am hoping it is just a seasonal change. She slowed down her eating last Winter as well, but I did not see the strange docking behavior. Although, this time last year, I had to dry dock her for a few months due to an injury--she had her toe biten off by another res.

Here she is on the move

[unclejoe]

Hmmm have seen peeling of Scutes like that before. But I can't tell you what the normal process is. A lot of times the wild turtles would disappear for a week and come back with brand new shells. This past summer we had a 4-5 inch female RES named Ambie (Amber) and she stuck around for her whole shed. It appeared that the shedding was fairly fast a week or so and she was all done. But it seemed like in the morning you could see a scute starting to peel and then by evening feeding time it was gone. I have no experience with captive turtles and shedding. How long have the scutes been lifted up like that?

Her head looks kind of green in this picture? Is that her normal color? She is a pretty girl..

[Lisa4christ]

Her scutes have been that way for about a week.
Seems like they lift up a little more each day.
One on her bottom came off in my hand when i was putting her back in the tank.
That is her normal color. Thank you

[unclejoe]

Well from what I just read about shedding and how complicated it can be, its a good sign that she is peeling and shedding so fast. It was mentioned to give them more vitamin E in their diet to help the shedding along, in the form of blueberries or wheat germ. I don't know how true this is, but I imagine that shedding their shells must take something out of them. Is there any chance that turtles mood or behavior can change while they shed? I know having owned birds that they can get pretty grumpy and refuse food when they molt. Have to entice them with special molting food pumped full of vitamins to get them to eat.

Also another thought, any chance your UV lights have worn out? Reason I ask is when we got Philbert he spend all day under his heat lamp never going in the water.. He did that for a few days and then we got the proper UVB lamp and now he basks but not all day.. he does it for a bit goes back in the water comes out an hour later basks again for a bit.. I am just wondering if he basked so long at the beginning cause he wasn't getting all the UV he needed when we just had the heat bulb.. Could she be basking so much since she is starting to shed and maybe not getting enough UV that she needs to get the shedding done??
Just a thought,, as I said I know nothing about all this.. Just trying to reason it out..lol

[Lisa4christ]

Good thought about the uv light. Going to switch it out and see if it makes a difference. It has been a while since i changed it.
Thank you for helping me think this through