Urgent Care :: Dead Turtle

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Post Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2018 1:48 pm   Dead Turtle

I wasn’t sure whether or not to put this on urgent care since he already died, but here is my info:
10 gallon tank
50 watt (I believe) basking light
Five gallon heater that goes up to 78 (although I think it stopped working)
20 gallon reptofilter
I had two turtles, both around 2 inches when I got them but people said they seemed to be growing.
So one of my turtles died, but I can’t figure out what exactly happened. He showed absolutely no signs of illness until I cleaned out the tank the other day (which I do once a week). When I put him back in, he was barely moving. I heard that it could be brumation (it is winter and I had to move the turtles to a colder room in the house temporarily), but when I tried to get him to move, I had to bother him excessively and all he did was open his mouth really wide. I put him in the water so he wouldn’t get dehydrated, but he started floating lopsided. I knew that was probably an RI so I tried my best to increase temperatures before we could go to a vet. But this morning, I found a whole slew of symptoms that never appeared on him before. His neck was sticking very far out, and it was really thick in diameter. He was leaving brown liquids out of a portion of his shell (back right I think) and when I turned him over, his underside had a bit of pink and the brown liquid was running down there as well. His back legs were swollen, like something white had created a bubble there. I firgured he was dead, and took him out immediately and cleaned everything he touched so the other turtle wouldn’t get sick. What were the causes of the other symptoms? And why hadn’t they shown up earlier? I would’ve taken more action had I known he was actually sick, but I didn’t see anything until AFTER he died.
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Gurdy7
 
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Post Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2018 2:14 pm   Re: Dead Turtle

The bloating/swelling makes me think he's been dead or sick for awhile. Turtles are good at hiding illnesses and having two together might have made it harder to pick up on any early symptoms. Brumation is not necessary for RES and not advised for smaller RES/hatchlings. Not eating or loss of appetite is usually the first symptom and a major one, but it's hard to determine what exactly happened here.
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steve
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