Urgent Care :: My Turtle is eating Tetra-Fauna Repto-Guard. Is this healthy

This is not a substitute for qualified and relevant veterinarian care.
Read this before you post a new topic here.

Post Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 6:34 pm   My Turtle is eating Tetra-Fauna Repto-Guard. Is this healthy

I just came home today to see my res eating the Repto-Guard. It is a tablet that you drop in to help condition the water. Will this hurt him. I am really worried. Any assistance with this is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!!!
mhanrahan
 
Posts: 2
Joined: May 25, 2005

Post Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 6:48 pm   

Hi and welcome. This is some kind of white block that's supposed to make the water healthier? It probably won't hurt him--if it were toxic I don't think it would be sold. But I also don't think it's doing that much to help to the water either as well as being a waste of money. Have you read any of the posts on the forums? If not, look for one about cuttlebone (the stuff for birds) in the Nutrition and Feeding Forum. It would be better to get some of this, break it into pieces and let some float in the tank so your turtle could munch on that--it would provide some of the calcium that he's probably looking for.

Tell us about your turtle and his set-up... :)
"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." -Antoine de Saint Exupery-
marisa
Retired Mod
 
Posts: 12993
Joined: Apr 21, 2005
Location: CT, USA

Post Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 7:21 pm   

Thank you for your response and your welcome. Common sense should have told me that by placing something in the water it would be safe, but being the overly protective "parent" that I am to Michaelangelo, I just freaked out and thought the worse. Your response put me at ease, and as I look at him basking on his rock, I now know he is going to be ok.

Michaelangelo was a rescue turtle from my twin sister. My sister had purchased him as a hatchling in NYC back in 2000. When she moved to Hawaii last July she packed up and left her apartment leaving Michaelangelo. About two weeks after she was gone, she asked me if I would go over and check in on him. Knowing that she would never return to care for him, I went over to discover him in an apartment with the air conditioner on (the place was 54 degrees when I got there), no water, and no food in the tank. He was the same size as when she got him, and he was black!!!!! I immediately brought him home, placed water in his tank along with some boston lettuce and carrot shavings. Within 48 hours his color started to come back. Some ten months later, he has grown from about 2 inches to an incredible 7.5 inches. His colors have really come out and he is as happy as can be. In January, I transferred him from a tiny two gallon tank that I had to change every few days to a ten gallon filtered tank with a heat lamp over a rock that I picked up at the ocean some time ago. He has adjusted perfectly, and is now a part of my family.

One question, I do have is determining how old he is. I don't know which squares to count on his underside (full squares or the partials that surround the bottom portion of his body)?

Again, thank you so much for your quick response and your help.
mhanrahan
 
Posts: 2
Joined: May 25, 2005

Post Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 7:42 pm   

It was good of you to rescue him the awful situation he was left in. You don't count scutes (the plates/squares) to determine age. You really can't accurately tell how old a turtle is unless you knew when he hatched. (And captive turtles are often bigger than they should be because of factors like being able to eat daily, no hibernation, warmth, etc.).

He has grown from 2 inches to 7.5 inches in only 10 months? When you give size, it's more accurate to measure the straight carapace length (SCL)-- the length of the shell from the scute/plate/square in back of the neck down to the end of the scute above the tail and don't include the curve of the shell. Is he still 7.5 inches when you measure this way? If so, what are you feeding him--how often and how much at a feeding?

If his shell length is truly 7.5 inches, he needs to be in something bigger than what he's in now (and even if he isn't, a 10 gallon tank is only suitable for an inch or less hatchling). Allow 10 gallons of tank per inch of shell length--at the size you said he is, he should be in an 80 gallon tank/container now. The heat lamp is necessary, but he also should have a UVB light as well. Read some of the info on the forums to see what else he might need.
"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." -Antoine de Saint Exupery-
marisa
Retired Mod
 
Posts: 12993
Joined: Apr 21, 2005
Location: CT, USA


Return to Urgent Care

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests