Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:45 pm Re: White Strands: Worms?????!!!
The strands are definitely NOT moving. They just sort of... float. If it weren't for the filter, I doubt they would move at all.
After 9 years, Shelldon's claws are pretty short, and her cloaca is fairly close to the shell, so I am fairly certain she is a female. The vet also was pretty sure she was a female as well.
My initial thought was that it was just shed skin, as it looked sort of patchy, and that the stringy ones were paper towel strands, since I would ocassionally use paper towels to get poopy or algae stains out of the tank (switched to a brush after I noticed the white things). I would see the specks on Shelldon's shell and sometimes her skin, but I figured it was just getting stuck to her when parts of her were above water. I would remove them with a wet q-tip.
I noticed the patches every so often back in Minneseota with her old tank, and it usually looked lettucy, or reptile shed skin like. I figured it was the same here, but the string like ones are new to me.
As far as the broken-egg thing, I tend to check if Shelldon has eggs from time to time, and it hasn't seemed like she has been gravid, nor has she been displaying any type of freaking out getting out of tank behavior. The only time she really figits is when I enter the room, and that is normal, for she expects food. As far as I can tell, her poop has been normal, but it is difficult to say. Her feces have looked pretty normal thus far (I think she pooped an hour ago, and it was just the usual carrot-bits with brown pieces floating around).I saw her poop in the form of a log a week ago, but couldn't really inspect it, as Shelldon... ate it.
I took out some samples on a paper towel, and some q-tips. They started out white, then just turned a weird greenish-brownish color, which supports my "lettuce-stem" hypothesis, but I am still not sure...
WIll attach a picture
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