General Care Discussion :: weird behavior??

[lilskip3125]

Hi all,

Have not been on in a couple months i have been so busy. lately i have noticed Fiona is not as active, water temp 78 and heating is about 92. She has a large tunnel that she will sit in all day... or she just lays on top. This has been going on for about 3 weeks now. Her eating habbit has slowed so barley eats what i drop into her tank.. maybe every 3 or so days she crunches on 2 or 3. Also, this afternoon i found on her ramp this white powder stuff.. it was not there this morning but does not seem normal to me. I have a hard time uploading pics to this website for some reason. Does this sound like something i should be worried about?? any suggestions would be helpful!! thank you!!!!

[theartbook35]

The white powder is probably mineral deposits, which means your water is very "hard". What type of filter do you use? How many gallons does it cycle per hour? How many gallons are in your tank, on average?

Also, even if the water is at 78, turtles determine it's winter because of the sunrise and sunset, and not necessarily by temperature. The days are shorter, and turtles do hibernate in the wild. I doubt it's a respiratory infection because this has gone on way too long, and, the colder season started about 3 weeks ago.

[lilskip3125]

Thanks for the reply!she is a 65-70 gallon tank and I have a fluval 405 - and it filters about 100 gallons every hour I believe. I went for the biggest but I've never had this problem before and I've had her for over a year. So I'm not totally convinced it's the water. And as for th wheather that sounds about right. I will keep a close eye on her and check the water. Thanks again I'm relieved she isn't sick or anything. Also, I am due to change the filter bags and replace the filters so that could also be the reason for not cleaning the water fully.

[steve]

I would bump up the water temperatures and try a different pellet to see if there are any changes.

[theartbook35]

Thanks for the reply!she is a 65-70 gallon tank and I have a fluval 405 - and it filters about 100 gallons every hour I believe. I went for the biggest but I've never had this problem before and I've had her for over a year. So I'm not totally convinced it's the water. And as for th wheather that sounds about right. I will keep a close eye on her and check the water. Thanks again I'm relieved she isn't sick or anything. Also, I am due to change the filter bags and replace the filters so that could also be the reason for not cleaning the water fully.

I have the Fluval 405 and 100 gallons per hour isn't quite enough for 65 to 70 gallons. You want a filter that cycles double or triple the amount of water in the tank. The 405 falls short by about 20 gallons or so, and, 20 gallons makes a big difference in the cleanliness of the tank.