General Care Discussion

Hello guys
My turtle is a year old. I feed him pellets as a staple on alternate days n the amount being roughly as much as the size of his head. He is a voracious eater but I keep him on a diet. Occasional guppies with an option of water plants all the time rounds up his diet.

Coming to the point , what's up with the black lines between the scutes ? I see his scutes are shedding n the black lines will disappear after he sheds ? Or is it pyramiding ?
Appreciate any input on this n thanks in advance

The black lines are a sign of rapid growth. I'll let others chime in, but there does not look to be much sign of pyramiding.

How much are you feeding? You may want to cut back a bit.

Your black lines aren't as wide as mine were

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33092

I am feeding him on alternate days ..I roughly feed him as many pellets as his head can hold..that's roughly around 10-12 pellets.
How many pellets do I feed him? There s a picture of him with his head sticking out in the first one although I can understand if its pretty hard to judge from that. I just wanna be sure I don't over feed him.

ljapa wrote:Your black lines aren't as wide as mine were

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33092

How s Toby doing now ? How s the shell n the black lines ? I see you got him round about august so that's a good 3 months , any signs of improvement on cutting back ?

Got him mid-July. Cutting back did make a big difference. Though, even though we were pretty consistent in the food, it was like he'd go through growth spurts where the food would cause no problems and then, feeding the same amount we would get growth lines.

He's just shy of three inches now, and we are transitioning to less protein and more veggies. Never had a problem getting him to eat vegetables, so other than more extensive begging at first, he's doing fine.

What made us start was another appearance of growth seams.

About two weeks ago, he finished his shed of the baby scutes. No problems with that, but there was also massive skin shedding. I was worried it was fungal and was ready to take him to the vet when they finally started coming off. He had shed skin before, but not like this. Since it happened at the same time as the first scute shed, I wasn't too worried.

He's in a 55 gallon tank. Over Thanksgiving I turned the Craigslist 55 I had gotten with the stand into a refugium. I have some plants I'll eventually feed him as well as the neon tetras he decided were food that had been tank mates for months.

I'm thinking about cherry red shrimp in the refugium that could become treats if they breed.

All in all, he's doing good, and my son and I are happy RES caretakers. We suspect he may be a she, though. I've not shown my wife the hatchling care picture at

http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/c ... slider.htm

No pyraminding. Shell growth looks really smooth. You cant get much better then this.

Diamondbacks4Life wrote:No pyraminding. Shell growth looks really smooth. You cant get much better then this.

Wow..that's a relief. Thanks

How soon can I see a difference in the black lines between the scutes ? Considering I am cutting back by almost 50 percent ?
What am I supposed to see ? Some kinda lightening of those dark lines or something ?

There looks to be a little overlap of the scutes, perhaps that is making it look darker.

General Care Discussion :: Input on the shell condition please - pyramiding ?

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