General Care Discussion :: Cleaning up my turtles shell

[atomicunicorn]

I need some help cleaning up my turtles shell. His old aquarium had some black algae growing on the corners of the tank and his basking rock, so I think that's the black gunk on his shell. I've since upgraded my tank and filter, so I hoped he would clean up a little from just the water quality, but it still looks like this. He's never shed a scute since I've had him (about a year) and I've tried a lot of things like blueberries and wheat germ pellets but they just wont come off! He basks just fine, and when he's completely dried off they look like they're gonna do their thing, but it never happens.

I recently bought some soft toothbrushes and gave him a little scrub with just water, but nothing really seemed to happen. I've heard that some kind of vinegar helps, but I don't know what kind and if it would work in this situation. So, what should I do to encourage those scutes to come off and clean up his shell a little? Also, are those little jagged ends of his shell ok?

[jenaero]

Mine looked like that when they were that age too. The scutes will shed eventually. After a couple good sheds he'll probably look just fine. I don't know what your feeding schedule is, but when mine looked like that, they were being fed too much. You might want to cut down on the protein and up the blueberry dosage. How much of what is he eating? I don't think that's black algae either. I think it's just a buildup of scutes

[atomicunicorn]

Well I usually feed him Reptomin sticks every other day with lettuce the other days, but I haven't consistently had lettuce around for the past 5 months or so. A couple of days ago I added some goldfish to his tank and he gobbled one down, so should I back off on the sticks and stick with lettuce? As long as it looks normal then I'm not too worried, I was just concerned that the health of his shell might be an issue since those scutes and edges of his shell look gnarly lol. But if that's how he's supposed to look then I can be patient.

[jenaero]

I wouldn't say that's how he's 'supposed to look'. It just happens sometimes. Check out the 'what to feed' list on the forum to get an idea of a more varied diet. I feed pellets 3x a week (mon/wed/fri) and veggies/greens/fruit on the days in between. On that diet, mine finally started to shed more regularly. It takes time though, so be patient and just keep an eye out for any abnormalities (pitting, rot, etc) as water can get trapped between/under the scutes.

[swiltz]

Yeap. I do seem retained scutes and algae stuck between/on some of the scutes... I would say continue with the toothbrush method to aid in removing some external algae, but thats the best u can do.
Just gotta be patient, with time the scutes will shed with proper basking and diet (vitamin E).