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Treating shell rot at home

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 1:05 am
by TikkaTheTurtle
Hi, I'm new here

I have a 3 1/2 inch RES named Tikka, which I got for free from someone (she said she can't take care of it). I have Tikka for three months now. She has a diet of pellets, kale, carrots, cabbage, live guppy fry (rarely), and sometimes apples and grapes as a treat. She has a tank near an opened window and her tank can hold 3.5 gallons (I'm going to buy her a bigger one 'cause it's very small for her). She has a filter and I do water change weekly. No heater. Daily temps are around 80 degrees in the morning. She also has a homemade basking area above the tank. I figured out that she has shell rot on her first month here. I treated her with betadine for 2 months and dry docked her for eight hours outside our balcony since I don't have a basking light. I noticed that she wasn't getting better so I bought Dyfazine cream (It has silver sulfadiazine) and I increased her dry docking hours to more than 21 hours each day, plus I added crushed eggshells to her daily diet. I think her carapace seemed to improve in a few days.

3 days ago, I just noticed that she has a soft area on both sides of her plastron near her back legs. I scraped the soft areas with a blunt knife and now its whitish pink and has a bit of clear discharge. No foul smell. She's not yet lethargic and still eats. Any advice on treating this? Or should I just continue applying betadine and Dyfazine cream and dry docking her for some weeks? I don't have enough money to take her to the vet :( . I took her out to walk at the park today for some direct sunlight. I'm not sure if walking in the ground can make shell rot worse though.

These are the soft spots
IMAG9623.jpg
IMAG9627.jpg

Re: Treating shell rot at home

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:30 am
by steve
Depending on your weather, you don't want your tank near the window. What pellets are she getting? Any UVB? A turtle needs vitamin D3 or UVB to metabolize calcium.

Re: Treating shell rot at home

PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 1:39 am
by TikkaTheTurtle
She's getting four pieces of Sanyu Turtle Stick daily. In the case of UVB, the light coming from the open window is not direct sunlight. Not sure if that counts as a UVB provider and her basking area is always wet (which might have caused the rot) so I started taking her outside every morning for one hour for some direct sunshine. Is this okay? Or should I increase the amount of time she's outside? Can crawling on soil worsen her shell rot? Thanks in advance.

Re: Treating shell rot at home

PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 1:42 am
by TikkaTheTurtle
I also stopped scraping the soft spots. I'm scared that I might reach the bone :shock:

Re: Treating shell rot at home

PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 6:58 am
by steve
Glass filters out UVB. UVB also does not penetrate water surface, so it is important that your turtle basks, gets UVB and calcium. When outside, I would try to make sure her area is clean, dry and not abrasive. Also offer some shade if she does not want direct sunshine and she will still get some indirect UVB.

Re: Treating shell rot at home

PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:07 am
by TikkaTheTurtle
The soft spot on her plastron turned reddish pink after I pulled off some loose flakes... I'm starting to panic now :(
IMAG9636.jpg

The brown stuff around is betadine.
I did offer her some shade and I kept her from walking on the grassy and rocky areas. I kept her in a shoebox to bask on our balcony