I need help with my musk turtles shell.
Posted: Sun May 26, 2024 7:36 pmMy female musk turtle named Frankii is about 14 years old this summer. I’ve had her since she was a hatchling and she’s been pretty easy to care for for most of her years.
Her shell has started to look worse and worse though. I was told it was hard water marks when it was just white spots, but I am sure there’s much more going on now. On top of her shell being very dry, flaky and having white spots when dry, her plastron suddenly has a green/black spot that has me very worried. This spot made me have her sit out of the tank for a while so she could dry off, and I am horrified and feel like a terrible turtle parent. To top it off, I live in an area where no one sees turtles, and even if they did, I am currently in a position where I can’t afford it. I just saved a stray cats life and bc of that my funds are low.
Frankii has a 75 gallon tank they is filled 3/4s of the way. She has a standard dock with a basking light. The dock has been raised today to be completely of the water as I noticed it sank a bit and wasn’t allowing her to completely dry off. She also has a land area that she can climb completely out of the wet tank and into a dry tank that sits above her tank, but she doesn’t find any interest in it really.
She eats pellets mainly but recently had a bunch of feeder fish. She tends to get a bunch of feeder fish every couple months and she feeds off them as she catches them.
Her filters are changed regularly, water cycled and changed out 50/50. I am just very worried about her shell. She eats normally, she’s always up and about, I honestly wouldn’t have known anything was wrong if I didn’t take her out to feed her and then do a visual inspection.
Any ideas what it could be and how to treat it? Unfortunately a dr is not in the budget right now so I need to try something at home first if possible. Thank you for looking!
(My photos are “too large” so I had to upload them to a third party site bc I couldn’t figure out it. My apologies.)
https://imgur.com/a/YZCQ7WA
ETA- her shell does not smell and is not soft at all. It is purely a ‘visual’ issue- as far as I can tell.
Her shell has started to look worse and worse though. I was told it was hard water marks when it was just white spots, but I am sure there’s much more going on now. On top of her shell being very dry, flaky and having white spots when dry, her plastron suddenly has a green/black spot that has me very worried. This spot made me have her sit out of the tank for a while so she could dry off, and I am horrified and feel like a terrible turtle parent. To top it off, I live in an area where no one sees turtles, and even if they did, I am currently in a position where I can’t afford it. I just saved a stray cats life and bc of that my funds are low.
Frankii has a 75 gallon tank they is filled 3/4s of the way. She has a standard dock with a basking light. The dock has been raised today to be completely of the water as I noticed it sank a bit and wasn’t allowing her to completely dry off. She also has a land area that she can climb completely out of the wet tank and into a dry tank that sits above her tank, but she doesn’t find any interest in it really.
She eats pellets mainly but recently had a bunch of feeder fish. She tends to get a bunch of feeder fish every couple months and she feeds off them as she catches them.
Her filters are changed regularly, water cycled and changed out 50/50. I am just very worried about her shell. She eats normally, she’s always up and about, I honestly wouldn’t have known anything was wrong if I didn’t take her out to feed her and then do a visual inspection.
Any ideas what it could be and how to treat it? Unfortunately a dr is not in the budget right now so I need to try something at home first if possible. Thank you for looking!
(My photos are “too large” so I had to upload them to a third party site bc I couldn’t figure out it. My apologies.)
https://imgur.com/a/YZCQ7WA
ETA- her shell does not smell and is not soft at all. It is purely a ‘visual’ issue- as far as I can tell.