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Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:40 pm
by michstarr
I have 2 things:
1 - Rock is a 5 year old female - and in the past year has seemed to be shedding her shell more than normal (probably not proper terminology!). I don't know if it's just she's bigger and the filter used to absorb it and now can't - or if there's something wrong.
2 - Rock has started to eat her basking platform. I don't know if she swallows it as I find lots of debris in the water that I have to clean, but she's made a good dent. It's one of those Zoo Med trutle docks. Rock was at a pet store for 6 weeks this summer where they fed her fish all the time - now she's back to pellets and some veggies. Could she be missing the fish and wants to eat something else?
A little worried.

Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:24 pm
by Ashley
Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Sun Oct 10, 2010 2:10 pm
by Ranger The Red Ear Slider
The dock eating won't harm your turtle mine use to eat allot of it and never harmed him.
Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Sun Oct 10, 2010 4:15 pm
by AllTheCandies
why do turtles eat their docks so often?
Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:11 am
by steve
Some will just try to eat anything. My RES chipped his beak by constantly biting a resin-made platform and chewed up a third of his cork basking area.
Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Tue Oct 12, 2010 6:50 pm
by Ranger The Red Ear Slider
I think mine does it for fun, He never really ate the dock just chewed and spit out the bits of foam.
Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Wed Oct 13, 2010 2:04 pm
by slabv
My turtles do the same thing. I have one of those zoo med floating docks, and my RES often nib on the underside of it. I think one of the reason is because food (pallets) will drift close of the edges of the dock, so over time, the RES associate dock with food source and nib at it. All Zoo med products are non-toxic, so most likely it will pass through turtle's system with no problem~
Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Mon Oct 18, 2010 7:59 pm
by Joel
I have the same problem, i bought a large turtle dock by zoomed where it said suited for all size aquatic turtles, and then Lola gets on it and it completely sank! so i put a block of polystyrene underneath it now everyone can get on without it sinking, but when she gets irritated she bites and rips pieces off to float around the tank..
Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:48 am
by sagoy
Luffy and Ninja bites and chews on anything in the tank, rocks, toys, cuttlebone, bridge, plastic plants... yeah..
Re: Shell shedding and eating Turtle Dock

Posted:
Tue Oct 19, 2010 11:24 am
by steve
If you have a particularly bitey and destructive RES, I would go for some cork bark. It's 100% natural stuff.