General Care Discussion

Ive had Enbi about a month and a half now and he's grown VERY significantly in that time, from 1.25" to 2.10"! I've been feeding him about a head's worth of Zoo-Med Hatchling Formula every day; he's be adamant for months about not eating any greens, but today, miraculously, he chowed down for the first time on romaine lettuce, so there's one hurdle *finally* overcome. Still, I'm worried about his shell health, for several reasons:

-- The spacing between his scutes has doubled since I've gotten him. I don't have a camera to take a good picture, but the black space between his green scutes is about half as wide as the individual scutes!

-- His shell is very slopped, and forms a prominent ridge down the center. I've read that this is common and will go away as he ages, but his seems to be getting worse. The very top of the ridge has also grown pale and it looks *almost* like he scraped it against something. There's no blood or foul smell, it just looks like it's been sanded a bit or something.

Slope/ridge:

Scraped ridge--you can see the space between his scutes here, too:

I'm cutting back his protein and giving him lots of veggies now that he'll finally eat them. what else can I do, and when can I expect him to shed his scutes for the first time?

I'm not sure about the scrape, but he's a baby. I think he's supposed to be growing that fast, and he's definitely not having an issue with protein/veggie ratio, because until they're about 4 inches they should be eating mostly protein, and then you introduce veggies more often. Just my opinion.

Yeah hatchlings grow very fast which is normal in your case.
The scrape could of been some kind of injury it got when doing something. Don't really know how to handle that

He likes to sleep wedged between his artificial cliff and the tank wall which is, I think, how he managed the scrape.

So I shouldn't be worried about the serious spacing between his scutes? He'll grow into it?

You might want to give a little less (and warn others about sneaking him food). The scrape looks normal, it sometimes goes along with the ridge. If you have the materials around, take regular weight/length measurements to chart his growth.

I don't have anything I can weigh him with, but I'll measure him regularly; I have a tape measure I use for sewing that works well. No one else feeds him though, I live alone, so any accidental over-feeding is entirely my fault. >>;

Make sure you're not including the curve of his shell in the measurement, but rather just a flat line next to him, along shell length.

I'm not including the curve, no. I've read the site front to back and know better than that.

Cool.

General Care Discussion :: Seriously rapid growth? And other shell issues!

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