Urgent Care :: Turtle is lethargic...I'm worried.

[MikeReda]

I have 1 female and 1 male RES about 5" each, and they're about 3 years old. I put them in a new 90 gallon tank this summer and they have been loving it. Usually very active, the female has spent a lot of time just sitting at the bottom of the tank over the past two days. She comes up for air once and a while and doesn't seem to be unbalanced when she swims, but I'm worried. My set-up is as follows: 75 degree water: 88.5 basking...about 80 gallons of water. I use a water conditioner called Aqua Safe and just did a complete water change two days ago (could that have something to do with it?) I have a heater and a Fluval 404 canister filter in there. I change the water about once a month (although it may have been 5 or 6 weeks this last time...but except for veggies, I feed them pellets once a day in seperate containers, so it doesn't get dirty real fast. I always remove the extra veggies too. They have a fake hollow log basking platform anchored to the tank under two lights...one of them UVB. They both do bask. They both have been picky about eating a lot of pellets lately...they only eat a few, but I cheaped out and I don't think they liked the brand. I bought ReptoMin yesterday which I think is better.

The tank is in the living room, but they are pretty used to people now...sometimes they don't even jump when someone walks by and they are basking.

Anyhow, I can't see that I'm doing anything wrong...I haven't noticed any signs that she's gravid, but that is a possibility, I guess. She just has been sitting at the bottom of the tank and not moving much the past few days and has never done that before. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

[MikeReda]

P.S. I do clean and change the filer when I change the water. I just added all new charcoal too.

[steve]

Try to bump up the water to 80F and the basking area around 93F. She could be reacting to the seasonal change but does the male harass her? Can you separate them for awhile to see if that would help?

Does she still go after treats?

[Muirner]

Also dont they say to not change all your media when doing a water change? Just tomany changes at once?

[MikeReda]

I'm bumping up the temperatures like Steve suggested. The male does harass her a little bit, but not much. Really they seem no different than before, except the female sits at the bottom of the tank a lot now. Once in a while they flutter their paws at eachother, but really they do their own thing. I can't really separate them since dividing the tank would mean that one of them wouldn't have access to the basking area, and I do not have another tank set-up to put one of them into.

I have been feeding them pellets every other day, but for the past month or so, they have been consuming less and less of them. I give an amount about the size of their heads, and they go after the pellets right away, but most of them are left untouched by the turtles. They have gone through phases of not eating in the past, so I am not that concerned, but I just don't know.

I'm going to go pick-up sand to make the 50/50 sand and dirt mix for a nesting area tonight. I will put the female in there tonight with an overhead light to see if she'll lay eggs...maybe that's the problem?

Anyway, thanks for the advice and I'll keep you posted.

Also, in response to Muirner, I didn't change ALL the filter media at once...just the charcoal. There are ceramic thingys in there that I did not change...but thanks for the advice anyway.

[marisa]

If there are no other symptoms, it sounds like they're reacting to the change of seasons.