General Care Discussion :: Shell treatment

Taking care of your turtle's overall health.

Post Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:25 pm   Shell treatment

I've been treating my turtle off and on for fungal infections for some time now. However any time there's an improvement and the treatment is stopped, the fungal infections start coming back.

While I do clean her tank regularly (once a week), I suspect that the filter that I have is incompatible with the tank even with the regular water changes so I've been looking to buy a better one. The tank holds about 40L of water, I've asked in a local store about a more powerful filter and they told me not to buy one meant for a bigger tank as it may push the turtle around or something like that (which I kinda doubt would happen).

This is what my setup looks like: https://i.imgur.com/eZW4SOX.jpg

I have also found these filters in the local store, I'd very much like to get an opinion on which one would be the best for my tank:

https://www.fish-street.com/resun_cy20_ ... tring=cy20
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aquarline-Comp ... B00HB2JR3Q
https://www.amazon.co.uk/sera-30603-Fil ... B002O82LEO
https://www.sera.de/us/product/freshwat ... l-filters/
https://www.sera.de/us/product/freshwat ... ix-filter/
https://www.fish-street.com/resun_ef600_external_filter
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Minjiang-Diamo ... B014DWRNLY

As for the fungal infections, I've taken photos of the infected places and have posted them below. I've also resumed treatment that consists of cleaning and brushing the turtle, followed by a potassium permanganate bath for several minutes, then applying iodine to the affected places and finally rubbing a paste made out of neosporin, silver sulfadiazine, clotramizole and betamethasone, after which she is dry-docked under a heat lamp, this treatment has been effective in the past, although I am not sure if I am to apply it everyday or not.

Here are the images of the turtle:

https://imgur.com/a/DrhECPG
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:22 pm   Re: Shell treatment

Unless the fungus is completely gone, it will come back and is usually harder to treat effectively. A 40 liter is roughly 10 gallons, and that is pretty small for an adult RES, even if it were filled to the top. I don' think a better filter will solve the fungus issue.

The chipped areas, and the exposed boney layers would still be my primary concern. In its current state, I think the turtle would be vulnerable to infection.
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Post Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 11:13 am   Re: Shell treatment

Unfortunately, I do not have the space for a bigger tank.

Would a better filter keep things like ammonia out of the water and thus aid with the treatment however?

What would the best course of action be now, aggressive treatments like I've mentioned above, for how long?
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Post Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2021 10:29 pm   Re: Shell treatment

None of the filters linked will do a particularly good job with a turtle. Filters also work better with more water, so I don't think it would help you as much as you'd hope. If you are stuck with that size, I'd rather do complete changes frequently and dechlorinate.

As for the treatments, I'm not sure of their efficacy outside of silver sulfadiazine and even that I think has limits to certain types of fungus.
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