General Care Discussion :: Curious concerns.

[Beta-5]

I wont lie. My fiance and I are newbs to aquatic turtle care. The wee turtle he brouhgt in was abandoned in a koi pond in our apartment complex; and he felt it was necessary to rescuse it.

Needless to say, I cant say no to an animal thats been tossed aside.

That being said, Im a little concerned. It wont eat - potential shock I'm told. After having come home from work, we note the little guy/chick..it. It's seemingly gasping and rubbing at his eyes alot. I read word of potential respitory infection.

any ideas? =\ I dun wanna harm him for lack of experience =\ doinfg all the reading we can tho!

[Yashm_Zeytoon]

You have certainly done the best.


I am not an expert but from my own experience you can find the answers to your question by reading the site and the topics from the forum.


http://www.redearslider.com/respiratory_behavior.html

[mikee]

Bet-5 You can help by sticking to the rules of the road. Proper temps and lighting is a strart. If it that small you can raise the temp to 78 degrees and the basking to 90 degrees with uvb lighting. The proper temps and lighting it will increase the metabolism and hunger level. Good Luck! m.

[papoopeepoo]

Kudos to you for attempting to save the little guy.

Have you used a water conditioner (de-clorinator) for the water in the tank? Or did you let it sit for 24 ours to let the chlorine evaporate? This is a common reason turtles' eyes may be irritated.

Can you tell us a bit about your tank? How large is it, is there a UVB lamp, is there a heat lamp, how warm is the water/basking spot? Has the turtle eaten anything yet, what are you attempting to feed him?

[TheComputerGremlin]

There are commercially available turtle eye drops at places like Petco/PetSmart. You can try these as well. Carrots are excellent for eye health (high vitamin A), so you can see if the little one would like some carrot slivers. If you peel a carrot into long, thin strips, it kind of resembles a worm and most turtles eventually love carrots.

Another thing is to get the turtle eating. Baby Reptomin is good if you can get him/her to eat pellets. Otherwise, try a stinky food, like tuna (I recommend tuna from the pouch, not the can, makes less of a mess), just don't overdo it. Turtles will figure out what's the good stuff and what's not, and it can lead to feeding problems later on.

Read everything you can on this site, and I mean literally everything. Search the forums, and just learn all you can. It's the first big step you should take. The next step is getting the correct habitat.

Oh, and you should probably just pick a gender, whichever you prefer, give the turtle a name (which can be unisex if you'd like). My little boy Mikey turned into quite a large girl when she was of age, so I just changed her name to Umi to help the transition, and started using female terms. Some members of the board get a little huffy if you call your turtle it ...

[marisa]

Can you describe the "gasping" at little bit more? Does your turtle do it in the water or when it's out of the water on the basking dock? If the turtle is breathing and the throat is expanding, that's normal. If the turtle is struggling for air while out of the water, with the mouth gaping, that could be a different story.

Are the eyes swollen at all?

Try to get him to eat---something that moves (pieces of earthworm, crickets, etc.) might be more tempting, especially if s/he's been living in a koi pond.

[theartbook35]

Gasping and rubbing the eyes a lot worries me. Rubbing of the eyes excessively either is a sign of RI, or it is a sign of swollen eyes. As marisa said, if you give us a better description, we can give you more thorough advice.

If you notice any excessive basking or lethargy, then your turtle needs to see a vet who specialize in turtles, or a herpetology vet.