The only real worry is an abnormally elevated white blood cell count. That's what's got our attention- and concern.
Puzzled
- Thread starter Moozillion
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I actually wondered about the earthworms, too, but thought my concern was silly. Now I'll add it to the question list!
Not a silly concern at all. Whenever you deal with live food, you get the feeder animal PLUS whatever is INSIDE that animal. Besides, I think the earthworms in her diet are one of the only changes Jacques has experienced in the last several months.I actually wondered about the earthworms, too, but thought my concern was silly. Now I'll add it to the question list!
Just to be thorough, you might want to mention the ghost shrimp and the guppies to the veterinarian as well.
@Markw84 -- Very interesting question. It would be useful to know the answer, regardless of whether that turns out to be the reason for Jacques' elevated white blood cell count.
Perhaps we can reach out to some of our members more familiar with the available research and data. If anyone has references or resources, Bea can take that with her when she takes Jacques to the veterinarian on Monday morning.
@Will @Eric Phillips @HermanniChris and anyone else I may have missed:
We are wondering about whether there is a seasonal Summer vs. Winter difference in white blood cell counts of Eastern mud turtles or any similar or relevant species. Any thoughts or suggestions?
Going out on a limb here... My gut feeling is that IF such data exists, it might involve box turtles.
KAGDR
Member
KAGDR
Member
Man ,so many great questions and help,hope Jacques is better soon,so many suggestions ...awesome
pastel tortie had a recommendation in another thread was a good idea , you may consider keeping track of Jacques weight …. a pretty accurate gram scale is pretty cheap , and it will give you one more bit of information to make a judgement off of…….
from what I've seen a parasite problem is a secondary problem caused by an underlying primary health problem ……… my turtles live outside and have always eaten wild living things , many I catch and feed them myself ……. parasites have never been a primary problem for anything healthy that I've had …… when you raise pups , they all have roundworms , the adults who interact with them and the mom who actually eats their feces never have roundworms ……..i'm sure my turtles are exposed to all sorts of diseases and parasites , exposure to bacteria , viruses and parasites often doesn't equal clinical disease …...
I knew a guy had aquarium fish , they died on a regular basis , I suggested he stop cleaning the aquariums so much , he no longer has that issue …….
from what I've seen a parasite problem is a secondary problem caused by an underlying primary health problem ……… my turtles live outside and have always eaten wild living things , many I catch and feed them myself ……. parasites have never been a primary problem for anything healthy that I've had …… when you raise pups , they all have roundworms , the adults who interact with them and the mom who actually eats their feces never have roundworms ……..i'm sure my turtles are exposed to all sorts of diseases and parasites , exposure to bacteria , viruses and parasites often doesn't equal clinical disease …...
I knew a guy had aquarium fish , they died on a regular basis , I suggested he stop cleaning the aquariums so much , he no longer has that issue …….
Thanks for the suggestion, Mark.
I dusted off my small animal scale that I bought when I first got my Hermann's tortoise.
Jacques' weight today is 181.4 grams (or 6.4 oz ) and she's 3.25 inches length (measuring the plastron while eyeballing the carapace to try and get SCL). Her weight is actually higher than it was when she was in treatment for her pneumonia on 1/10/2018- she was 161.5 grams.
Also, are you suggesting that I don't clean my aquarium so often? I currently clean it about every 2 weeks and do a 50% water change then. If it don't clean it, everything gets covered with brown slime and looks gross. I'm not sure if the brown slime is algae or diatoms.
After it took her so long to recover from her pneumonia, I bought a "Green Killing Machine" aquarium sterilizer. It seemed to work well, but I had to mount it horizontally because the water in her tank stays at about 5 inches depth. She kept wedging herself under the sterilizer, which dislodged it and EVERY morning I would find it displaced and blowing air bubbles. (with her sitting underneath it looking quite proud of herself). So I removed it since it seemed like it wouldn't be working because it ended up sucking air every day.
uv sterilizers imo are excellent to use , was it possible to get your uv sterilizer tight against the bottom ? maybe put a rock on it ……..I don't believe you use gravel ? so the only biological filtration you have is what's in your filter , so you need to be careful cleaning your filter , don't clean them too good , and don't use tap water , clean them with aquarium water . you probably know that anyway ……… hoping Jacques is ok …...
Putting a brick under it so she can’t crawl under is a great idea, Mark!
I’ll try and set it up again tomorrow.
Thanks!
Bea, this is a really good point. Don't mistake algae on the glass for a water quality problem. Algae is encouraged by lots of UVB and can be made worse if nitrates are too high. Nitrates can be controlled by not overfeeding andremoving poop and food waste quickly.
When cleaning an aquarium
Remove a bucket of water and use this water to rinse and clean all the active components in your filter - carbon, filter sponges, biological media - whatever is in the filter. Tap water must not come into contact with these.
The pump casing and impeller can be cleaned under the tap.
The active components need replacing every so often, but never do them all in one go. For example, filter sponges typically come in pairs and once every six weeks change one only. In between times rinse them thoroughly in the bucket of water removed from the aquarium.
Fifty percent water change is still too much to take out in one go. Twenty five percent maximum is plenty. Typically we change 15% in our fish aquariums and only do this every three weeks.
When topping up the water don't add raw tap water straight from the tap. Use an aquarium water conditioner like Fluval Aqua Plus in the water. We also use Nutrafin Waste Control at every water change and that would help too.
Jacques ate some salmon this morning!!!! Not a lot, but she ate!
So, fingers crossed!
They only wanted me to bring her in if she wasn't eating, so as long as she keeps eating 1-2 times per week, I'll wait and bring her in for her already scheduled appointment on Jan 2.
Feeling hopeful!
So, fingers crossed!
They only wanted me to bring her in if she wasn't eating, so as long as she keeps eating 1-2 times per week, I'll wait and bring her in for her already scheduled appointment on Jan 2.
Feeling hopeful!
I clean EVERYTHING in water that has been treated with Neutral Regulator by Seachem. It "removes chlorine, chloramine and detoxifies ammonia." It also adjusts the pH to 7.0 from either high or low. It seems to work well since the fish in her tank appear pretty healthy- and the ghost shrimp reproduce freely!
Because the filter hangs on the side of her tank, and I have to keep her water much lower than a regular aquarium with fish, the water falls about 1/2 the height of the aquarium before it hits the water, and so it makes a continuous pretty loud splashing sound which annoys me after a while. So I routinely hang a long strip of aquarium filter foam at the outflow. This catches the outflow so that it trickles down the filter and into the water without all the splashing. I figure provides extra surface area for the denitrifying bacteria- at least that's my theory!
@Yvonne -- Any thoughts as to what might cause elevated white blood cell counts in an Eastern mud turtle? The specific turtle is Jacques, kept by @Moozillion.
Are you aware of any situations in any chelonians where there might be a seasonal spike in white blood cell counts? @Markw84 had an interesting idea that there might be a physiological advantage for hibernating or brumating turtles if they did.
I don't have nearly enough experience or in-depth research to know, but I am very interested in the answers.
Are you aware of any situations in any chelonians where there might be a seasonal spike in white blood cell counts? @Markw84 had an interesting idea that there might be a physiological advantage for hibernating or brumating turtles if they did.
I don't have nearly enough experience or in-depth research to know, but I am very interested in the answers.
@ZEROPILOT -- I wanted to make sure you saw this this thread, because I think you were keeping up with Jacques' previous health concerns, starting with the near-drowning incident about a year ago.
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Bea
Are you still using one of the smallish filters I sent you?
I've been keeping silent because I'm not at all knowledgeable about water turtles.
But I have a LOT of large and intermediate filters I don't need...
.An I mom line sterilized is easy to put in place.
In fact I have two canister filters that HAVE UV sterilization. You can certainly have one.
I believe they are AQUATOP CF400 or 500.
I bought them as spares and then I got rid of all but one of my tanks.
Are you still using one of the smallish filters I sent you?
I've been keeping silent because I'm not at all knowledgeable about water turtles.
But I have a LOT of large and intermediate filters I don't need...
.An I mom line sterilized is easy to put in place.
In fact I have two canister filters that HAVE UV sterilization. You can certainly have one.
I believe they are AQUATOP CF400 or 500.
I bought them as spares and then I got rid of all but one of my tanks.
Hi, Ed! You are so sweet!!!
The first filter did just fine until we had a power outage that happened while my hubby and I were not home. Once the power came back on, the filter motor started up, but having lost its prime due to the power outage, the pump ran for about an afternoon with no water in it. Of course as soon as we came home and figured out what happened, we stopped the pump and primed it again, but it just couldn't move much water at all, so I figure the motor or the pump was too damaged from running while it was dry. I used parts from the other filter to keep it going and it lasted a good while before it got sluggish.
I bought a Fluval something-or-other that seems to be doing fine so far.
I would be happy to have one of your filters that has the UV sterilizer in it, but ONLY if I can reimburse you for it.
I've always been under the impression , hibernation/brumation inhibits immune function ? but i'd think that the suppression would be a result of the temperature and light , would not pertain to turtles kept at optimal temperatures with adequate lighting …….. thinking of lighting , I have 3 blanding's turtles I brought in the house after letting 2 of them go into hibernation for a month or so , I just added a 6000 lumen light to their enclosure which puts it around 20,000 lumens for 8 square feet , it is ridiculously bright , 6 individual lights ……... I believe to mimic daylight over 8 square feet i'd need 90,000 lumens , more than 4 times the lights I currently have ………
I may be able to help. I'm a reptile wildlife rehabilitator, veterinary consultant, and a contributor to an exotic veterinary educational journal. I see and treat mostly land and aquatic Chelonians all year with everything from RI to fractured shells. It will require you joining my FB consultation group though, as I won't do such an in depth consultation in this format. Normally, I ask for donation for these kinds of consults, but I'm cherry picking your case to extend the offer. I recently consulted on a case with a sulcata that was being seen at LSU and that one couldn't have gone better. You can find my group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/reptilehealthconsult/
Dormancy does very much affect immune function. You are correct. When a reptile is in hibernation/brumation, they are operating on minimal life support to conserve stored calories and hydration, and one of the systems that is largely shut down during this time is the immune system, and that's not completely unrelated to the fact that the gut is largely non functional at this time. Which is why reptiles should never be placed in brumation if there's any question of health, and they should be fasted to clear bowels before being allowed to brumate.
