Hi,
I took my RES (not sure of the age, but he has been in my care for 3 years now and was about 3.5" when I took him in) to the vet 3 weeks ago for shell rot. Initially he had slight pitting on his plastron, which was treated with dry docking and iodine. It escalated to 2 soft spots on his carapace near his tail, so I took him for a vet visit. Per the vet, he has been dry docked continuously, with the exception of 15-30 minutes of clean water to eat, dried off, then wiped down with a chlorhexidine solution and silver sulfiladiazine cream is applied. After 2 weeks, the soft spots on the carapace were hardening up, but the super soft spots by his tail (vet debrided those areas down to bone) appear to be getting worse. After a few days of this treatment, the pitting in his plastron (which appeared to be healing pre-vet visit and the oozey discharge never smelled funky and was always clear) began showing redness- almost vein like, as opposed to a general irritation/infection redness- and seemed to be getting worse with treatment. At the 2 week follow up, the vet gave us ceftazidime injections (fecal test showed negative for parasites, so she prescribed the antibiotic to be proactive). It has been a week since the follow up visit and the initial soft areas on his carapace are still hardening back up, but the edge of his plastron directly under his tail is now so soft that it moved/squished and got red when I was gently applying the silver sulfiladiazine cream with gauze. Other than being annoyed and occasionally peeing while I'm giving him his meds, he has not shown any signs of stress. He has been eating every time he gets to swim, urinates (I only see it when he's upset over getting meds) and is very active. He drinks out of a water dish in his kiddie pool/dry dock area. Only concern is that he seems to deficate about once a week. When he does go, it's an all day eventomorrow and we can't keep up with making sure his towels/bedding is clean.
Has anyone experienced shell rot/ infection with this treatment getting worse?
Also, he was found at a friend's work (rafting company) in a sand pail with a female friend (they were named Lost and Found). The friend lost Lost and was unable to provide remotely acceptable care for Found, so we took him in. Initially, the tank was filled with city water (treated with those dechlorination drops), then we moved up the mountain and had to use well water. He seemed healthy at both locations. We moved to our current place this past May, which is also well water, and August was when my catfish got suddenly ill and passed, as well as when I first started to see signs of shell trouble. The landlord stated that she had the water tested last year and everything was in acceptable levels, but I have never seen the actual test results. The pH tests at 6.0 out of the tap and in the tank, but I'm not sure what the actual reading is since the API Master kit stops at 6. The only thing that makes me think water is not the cause is that both Found's tank and my tank with 2 young RES (rescues from the pound, so not much history on them either) both show good ammonia/Nitrite/nitrate levels and temps, and the only issues the babies have are being afaid of people and Agatha's retained scutes, both of which are improving immensly. Could acidic water cause or encourage pitting/ softening in the shell?
Found and I were taking all of this in stride (he is sooooo very tolerant of the dry docking and meds, especially the injections every 3 days, and gets curious and shows off for the vet) until I noticed the newly softened and red area by Found's tail. Now I'm getting quite concerned for my little buddy and feel an even more urgent need to figure out the exact cause of his shell infection.
Any simmilar experiences or advice would be greatly appreciated!