General Care Discussion :: shell scratch

[jonreif]

One of my turtles came up with a uniqe issue to me....

now she is in a glass tank with a large zoo med dock and noting else to scatch herself on..

on the bottom of her bottom shell I noticed some scratches and they are deep enough to feel easy, about 1/8 wide

I cant for the life of me figure out how those got there outside of the dock but the zoo med is only a plastic/foamish device so I cant see that causing such deep gouges...

I did notice one day she had the bottom suckers taken off and was attempting to climb up the back of the dock but again I cant see that material as being strong enough to gouge her that bad

I will list her normal care so you know her situation in case you feel something else is wrong...

she eats well, and has a diet of pellet and we give fish about once a month and the occasional worm. we do feed fresh fruit bits daily (apples pear strawberry)

she is a cuttle bone maniac and will devour one in about 2 days so calcium should be good

she basks under correct 10+ water temp heat and proper UV from about 10am till about 2 pm everyday almost like clockwork. Water temp 78

She seems in otherwise normal health and activity... her shell seems of its normal hardness and texture not soft feeling that I can tell.

I know its noting that will hurt and the gouges should heal over if not completley disappear but I would love to know why this happened so I can eliminate the problem in future

any knowledge you can give me would be appreciated greatly...

[marisa]

This dock has coated metal to hold it against the wall of the tank? Is any part of the metal exposed? Are there any sharp areas that the plastron (bottom shell) could have rubbed against?

[jonreif]

This dock has the plastic frame with rubber suction cups so nothing is exposed, all 3 of my large docks are plastic frames so I guess they cheaped them down recently.

thats why I am confused as I can find no logical reason or anyting that would have the ability to do this... My concern was a shell problem leading to such a problem but her shell seems normal as can be and as I said above everything is setup good and she seems happy enough

I have gone to thinking that if it was not caused by the dock material itself that somehow she must have scratched it on the screen cover that is seccure down with clamps even though she would have had to have something like a turtle sized scisors lift to hold her up there to make the scratches as they are but these critters can do amazing things if left to their devices so crazy as it sounds it could also be the case