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I have had my turtle for about a month now. When I got it, it had just hatched. Lately we have a been feeding him about 6 pellets throughout the course of the day. Every few days I cut up several small pieces of carrots for it to eat. He has adequet basking and well regulated water temperature. It's shell seems to be growing fast and has wide, dark gaps between each scute.

I am not sure if it is being overfed or not. Also, are the gaps a sign that it will start shedding soon?

if you could post a picture, it would help us figure it out

Here is Sebastian:




He's about 1.5" long.
There are also very large white spots on the edges of its middle scutes.


Another thing I noticed was a whitish, whispy growth all over his shell.

I don't think it is what you are feeding him. Do you have a UVB light for him as well? He may just need to shed too.

(i'm sure someone can answer this better then me!)

A good close up picture of the shell dry would help us out more.

I mentioned this in another post... please read some of the basic care info. If you haven't already, please move him out of the lagoon into an appropriate tank with a fully submersible water heater. A heating pad is not suitable to control water temperatures.

TurtleBot wrote:I don't think it is what you are feeding him... (i'm sure someone can answer this better then me!)

For that size, I fed mine 4 pellets once a day. And lettuce and other veggies daily. You do not want to overfeed pellets or high protien foods. It often seemed like it wasn't a lot, but at a year his growth was right on track (3 inches at a year, around 1 inch a year after that). Of course, as he's grown the amount he gets has increased but not drastically.

his shell seems to grow out very evenly, so I don't think it's anything bad
just keep in mind don't force shed the scute on your turtle when it's not totally ready to shed off yet, it could cause deform on the scute later on

Oh wow - I've been overfeeding mine then.
I give them 6 pellets in the morning, 6 pellets before bed.
They're only 1 1/2 inches.
Well I'm glad I read that.

Yeah, you need 10 gallons per inch of turtle. If you can't afford a tank, use a storage box like me. A large one will give them growing room.
Click the link below to view some pictures of my setup:
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4602

The scutes look fine. I think your feeding him alright, but you might want to vary his diet. Use water plants like Water Lilys or the Anarchis plant. Try feeding crickets also.

Do any of you guys know if you're feeding them live animals/insects, do you need to cut down on their pellets for the time?

Dark, wide gaps sound like he's growing...perhaps a bit too fast.

What could be done so that he grows at a healthy rate?

Monitor the amount of food that is being fed. Provide veggies and cuttlebone instead of extra pellets. Make sure that water temp and basking temps are correct. Too warm can cause excessive eating.

The water temp is vital to have!!