General Care Discussion :: History of Curing a Turtle's Shell

Taking care of your turtle's overall health.

Post Posted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 3:28 am   Re: History of Curing a Turtle's Shell

Any way you can actually confirm you're dealing with shell fungus?
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Post Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 12:54 am   Re: History of Curing a Turtle's Shell

dragonsmew wrote:Oh my gosh what an improvement! I'm having the same problem with my Buddy, but how do I solve it? I'm not sure how exactly to get the perfect diet for him, perfect water condition ect. My Ph is always low even though I use a powder to raise it - how do I fix this especially? :( I have hard water where I live so idk how to change this. I really just want to get my baby's shell looking good and healthy again. Please help!!


Dragonmew , You have mentioned that you have hard water in your area.... Do you have any pet stores around? Pet supermarket or a fish store? I am not saying to add fish. People do have mixed feelings on having fish with their turtles . I really do not based on my experience and keeping all my animals including fish at any given time healthy as possible. But what I do recommend and it is one of mother natures way to get soft water in your tank without the use of chemicals. This proven fact may take anywhere from a few days to a week or two to achieve with testing of course the water daily and you will see that every day that goes by, your water will soften to the right levels that it should be by drift wood that has already been prepped in aquatic tanks.

I only stick with the best that I can buy or close to it no matter if it is a non living item and or a any animal that I wish to keep as pets. I also believe to have things as natural as possible and legal. If you do some research, you can find natural driftwood that has already been prepped for tanks and are placed in the pet shops aquatic enclosures for their own attraction displays that entice customers to buy depending on each customers taste.

Many of these pieces of attractive driftwood pieces, you can get with non toxic water plant tanks so they are not mixed in with fish with possible medical issues. You can buy this type of drift wood with non toxic edible aquatic plants for your turtles to snack on periodically or you can control the turtle diets from plants, by buying baby fish screened containers that keep babies from being eaten in which you can get to keep the plant snack seperated and only giving the turtles bit by bit . The driftwood is the key to have mother nature make your hard water soft though.

The fish I have in my turtle tank (and mind you, my albino turtles won't eat fish anyhow), but my fish are higher end priced guppies (4 to 6 dollars each) which I felt would make a nice display. My thinking on this and why is the following (1) fish breeders would raise higher valued fish with way more precautions then they would say with feeder fish for the reason that they limit their risk of losing whole collections. (2) Pet shops as well for the most part, think of this as well. Any loss of their animals that are higher priced that they intend to sell even wholesale or retail, can lead to a great financial loss in quantity therefor better healthy practices is mandatory for each employee and required in their jobs. Maybe that is a odd way of thinking, but if you notice by looking at pet store tanks, you do see the difference in all the fish overall regarding health and maintenance between them from feeder fish to high dollar fish. As a customer to the store, you would clearly see this yourself.

Many pet shop employees think this is strange but always said that I had valid points in my general outlook. I produce so many higher end (value) guppies now that I have a spare tank to bring up the overstock and when they get to the point of telling male and females, I give some away to my residents where I am a property manager for free and I take some of the guppies and trade them back to the pet store and trade them for turtle food and supplies. Though I paid good money for these higher end fish it clearly resulted back into healthier fish and no further money spent on needed turtle supplies.

Think about the driftwood that has already been suited for aquatic displays if noting else. For a decorative piece with non toxic plants, I paid anywhere from 12 to 14 dollars and this would make your water soft.

Regarding this turtle thread here what also attracted me to read over it, was a outstanding thread regarding husbandry skills for this red ear slider. What the turtle went through and how it was last seen in this post, was truly remarkable in all regards.
Confirmed Sexed Pair of Albino Red Ear Sliders, Baby Albino and Hybino Red Ear Slider and Adult Normal Male Red Ear Slider
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Post Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2018 8:17 pm   Re: History of Curing a Turtle's Shell

Thank you very much!!! Prior to find your post, my turtle look like your first post, mostly white. After just one week following your instructions, now looks like 3rd picture, very clean and bright, except for some jagged borders on plastron. Vets told me it was calcium accumulated or metabolic disease. I've never imagined it was just fungus!!!! On a side note, if you can't find Novalsan, you can use Povidone-iodine instead, that can be purchased in almost any convenience store of even supermarkets. although it takes more time to make effect. The real magic comes from Silver Sulfadiazine, which literally kills the infection in 2-3 days (but you still have to apply for no less than 10 days to be sure it won't come back).
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Post Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2019 8:02 pm   Re: History of Curing a Turtle's Shell

I wish I could see the pictures!! Even 10 years later this post could be helpful!!!
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Post Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:26 pm   Re: History of Curing a Turtle's Shell

Blast Photobucket! I might have them saved somewhere, can re-upload them.
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Post Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2023 11:34 am   Re: History of Curing a Turtle's Shell

Gives me hope that I will be able to heal Benji's shell :D she is only 5-6ish so theres plenty of time to correct what has gone wrong with her past owners. That's a HUGE improvement
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