General Care Discussion :: Another Shell Question..

[Turtle Mummy 101]

Hi everyone,
So my little Charlotte is 7 months old now and doing well. She is active, basks regularly and has got a very healthy appetite. She especially enjoys her afternoons spent in the summer sunshine

She's about 2inches now and looks fine except for her shell. She hasen't shed any scutes yet but it looks as if she is about to. She has spaces between some of her scutes, and others around the edges are sunken..i'm confused as to why this is happening because I made sure she has everything she needs. She eats cuttlebone 3x/week and goes outside for sunshine almost every day. When she's not outside, she basks under the ReptiGlo 5.0. She eats 2 pellets/day and gets lots of veggies every day. Her skin shedding is normal and she seems healthy otherwise.

I'll attempt to include some pictures of the dry shell here..if the photo uploader will work haha.

Charlotte a few weeks after I got her.

[steve]

Everything sounds great, but in the last pic it looks like she's growing a bit too fast. But at 2" and with how you're caring for her... I'm confused too. My male RES has a few scutes sunken in, but that was mainly due to a very poor diet and less than ideal habitat conditions.

[Turtle Mummy 101]

Steve, thanks for the response. Do you think there are maybe some different foods that i could try? Should I cut down the amount of pellets she gets - 1 every day or 2 every other day? I feel like she's a little young for this though..she's still a baby and needs her protein.

[steve]

To be honest, 2 pellets a day doesn't sound like much at all... even sounds too little.

[Turtle Mummy 101]

I was giving her for up until a few weeks ago when I suspected she may be growing too fast. I figure because she gets alot of veggies she should be ok. I'll probably bump it back up to 4 though.

[marisa]

With that translucent rim around the edges of the marginals and the uneveness of some of the marginals, it looks like the scutes have not had a chance to shed. This is due to too rapid a growth. The amount of the pellets isn't too much.

You say she gets lots of veggies---what kind and how much at a feeding?

[Turtle Mummy 101]

Hey Marisa, Charlotte gets 1-2 large leaves of Romaine lettuce /day, plus I always keep a few water hyacinth plants in her tank. This is in addition to the amount of pellets she receives daily. As well, there is always a piece of cuttlebone available for her in the tank. It's funny, it took her awhile to warm up to veggies but now that she has she absolutely loves them - so I always try to keep some on hand.

I'm very confused though as to why she has grown so fast!! I have always been consistent with feeding and with the amount of time the lights stay on. Do you have any ideas?

[marisa]

"Lots of veggies" is the Romaine and water hyacinth? My RES is about 4X the size of yours, and I can recall only rarely giving him two large leaves of Romaine, and that was when I was busy and didn't feed him at all the previous day. I also try to take out as much of the vein in the center as possible (mostly water). Any other veggies?

Whats the water and basking area temp? Heat facilitates appetite and thereby growth.

[Turtle Mummy 101]

Sometimes she gets Duckweed, read and green leaf lettuce. I figure along with the Romaine and Water Hyacinth that should be enough variety. I always cut out the vein as I am aware it contains water.

The water temperature is set at 75 and the basking at 90.