Hi there, a newbie here, this is my first post!
First of all, I would like to thank the creator and everyone who has contributed to this forum! You have no idea how much you all have helped us understand more about red eared sliders!
I have two RES who have been with me for more than 10 years. They were absolute cutie pies when they were young
On the right, we have Cheeky
and on the left, Cheesy
. This picture was taken in 2007!
Over the years, they have lived in a small plastic aquarium with some rocks in it for them to dry themselves out. Their water got changed every day or every other day as there was no filter. They were fed only turtle pellets every other day and that's it really. They live by the window, but they never went outside for sunbathing. Today, they still live in a plastic aquarium, just slightly bigger, and the rest is the same. However, they look very different now, not in a good way...
This was taken a few days ago when I brought them out to play in the garden.
Their shells have been looking white-ish and silvery for a while (several years), but no one really knew what it was all about, so nothing has been done about it. They are behaving normally, eating and basking as usual, and their shells are hard. On visible inspection, everything seems normal so we take that they are healthy.
Earlier this month, I began some researching about turtle shells and realised that this is not normal!!! So now, I am determined to restore their beautiful shells to their old glory. We do not have much resources, so we are unable to make any big changes but we will do what we can!
I have read about wheat germ pellets helping with scutes shedding, so I have started feeding them, since the beginning of the month, Hikary Goldfish pellets almost every day or every other day along with their usual turtle pellets. Usually 2/3 Hikari and 1/3 turtle pellets.
This is the wheatgerm pellets they are having:
- Hikari wheat germ copy.jpg (46.04 KiB) Viewed 10250 times
and this is the turtle sticks they eat:
- sanyu copy.jpg (55.51 KiB) Viewed 10250 times
Apart from pellets, I have started introducing green and red leaf lettuce on their pellets off-days. They angrily refused the vege on the first day, but they gave in on the second day
. They still refused the red lettuce though. When they see me, they come crawling hoping for pellets
, and when I am gone they went back to munch on the green lettuce lol.
Also, I have been bringing them out for some direct sunshine in the mornings for 20-40 minutes whenever I can. I remove them from their aquarium and place them in a shallow container and make sure the plastic does not block the sunlight. I try to give them at least 5 sunshine sessions a week. For extra doses of UVB, I have ordered a heat+UVA+UVB bulb, which will be arriving soon.
It has been two weeks, and I hardly see any improvements on their shell condition
Only tiny bits of their shell have come off in the past week in papery fragments, not the whole scute. Some of their retained scutes seem to have glued together, especially the ones in the middle, while the ones on the sides are thickly stacked.
This is Cheeky's
carapace and plastron:
and this is Cheesy's
:
I really want their shells to be beautiful again. What should I do? Do you think they need to see a vet?
Any advice or opinion is greatly appreciated! Thank you!