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Hey all,

Don't come around here often because I consider my turtles healthy and happy. But a co worker of mine bought a RES for her grand daughter last year as a present and then shows me these pics today asking if it was normal. I assured her it certainly wasn't, but couldn't offer much more advice other than that. Her filters have these weird looking worm things on them, and she says that flies are coming out of the worms, which doesn't make any sense to me, but I do know they don't look normal and Ive never seen anything like this on my filters. Additionally, the turtle's shell looks absolutely terrible. Looks like algae to me, but I'm no expert, again Ive never seen anything like this on my tank.

I told her just guessing, that the tank is exposed to direct sunlight and possibly algae growth due to that. I also told her make to sure the turtle can get completely out of the water and sun himself. Not sure about the worms though.

Any advice that I can pass along to her though regarding either of these would be greatly appreciated.

Maybe they are fly larvae? That would make sense if there are flies "coming out" of them. I imagine the tank needs some cleaning / water changes / better filter. That filter material looks like its from a pretty small filter.

I'm sure questions to follow are going to be about the turtle's set up. You can can cut and paste this to give more info: viewtopic.php?t=2142

When blown up these are tapered on one end resembles more in the leech family. Before any infestation of any type worm I would tell your co worker throw out "all old media" get new and clean tank very well. More time and attentions is needed for scheduled maintenance. That type pre made filter pads are mostly on small filters. Turtle her size needs a more efficient filter , one rated for it's size.
The algae on shell can be cleaned up using a child's "soft" tooth brush and water. Gently scrub it off ! Lets see what condition shell is in.
Hitchhikers get into tanks by live plants , live feeders , decorations... that's why before anything goes into a tank it should be quarantined.
Photo of setup can help along with questions Kingbird asked to cut/paste.

I agree with the above posts. Most likely the whole tank is severely inadequate to our standards.