Can someone help us figure out what this is?

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

This is Bixby, a 4 month old red foot. Can you help us figure out what this is on his belly and what we can do?

 

[Yvonne G]

It's the start of shell rot. Keep him in a drier environment for a couple weeks. clean off the shell real well with a soft bristle brush, then dab on athlete foot cream and rub it in. you should see improvement after about a week, but keep it up for two weeks.

Do a search for shell rot. We've discussed it quite a bit here on the Forum.

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

Thank you!

 

[tortdad]

Shell rot for sure. Be sure to look in the Redfoot section as there is a good step by step on how to cure it.

Then post some pictures of your set up so we can help you fix that so this doesn't happen again. Redfoot are prone to this but with some tweaks to your set up they shouldn't get it again.

 

[tortdad]

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/tortoise-shell-rot-and-how-to-treat-it.63813/

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

It wasn't exactly our set-up, least it shouldn't be. We got Bixby about 3 days ago, might have just not noticed the markings.

But for now since Yvonne said to keep the substrate dry, I will let it dry out a bit. Right now we have a wet, humid end a more dry end and the dryest end where he tends to sleep. Temp is about 80 and humidity is 80 as well. Now that we have our daytime UVA/B light the basking area is at 95. The basking area is also in the wet part of the tank (not wet but very moist).

We use cypress mulch substrate. Believe it was called forest floor.

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

I started treatment tonight, will be posting to let you know how it goes!

Thanks for the insight all!

 

[ZEROPILOT]

You don't want the substrate to be always wet in any place!
I'll tell you what I do for my indoors torts: I have a layer of orchid bark with another layer of potting/garden soil on top of it. (potting soil has less sand than top soil.)
I pour some water into the corners and the orchid bark absorbs the liquid, leaving the soil dry on top. So you get the humidity along with no harmful "always damp" effects. A plus is that you can also sprout seeds in the soil for a nibble.
I had my own run in with this! In the summer time it is very hard to control because my out door Red Feet love to hang out in the mud.
Cleaning the area and applying athletes foot cream heals it pretty quickly. Using the substrate explained above will keep it from returning soon. You'll see it again in the future and it's easy to catch early, like you did this time.
Another tip is that if you buy "Dollar store" Athletes foot cream, it works just as well. I also have some "Dollar store" Antibiotic cream for scrapes, etc.

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

It's not exactly wet, but moist. Was trying to think of how to explain I have three different zones in the tank temp and humid wise it seems. Maybe more like two.

I'm going to do what you said though with the water so the top is always dry. Hopefully we'll start seeing results from the treatment soon

Glad we found this forum lol everyone is extremely helpful

 

[ZEROPILOT]

The thing is, if given the option, they would stay in the wet. I think in nature they move around a lot more and don't stay wet for very long.
Last year we had a LOT of rain and only towards the end of the season did I find it on my largest male. I never saw it before and I cleared it up quickly with help from another Florida Red foot keeper here.
I suppose that wet is fine right up until the moment that it is just too much.
Right now both of my outdoors Reds are swimming in their pool.
They love the wet!

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

We plan on keeping ours indoors until it gets to a decent size, but we will be building an outdoor enclosure in the next few months so bixby can have some outdoor time as well as indoors

 

[Turtlepete]

It wasn't exactly our set-up, least it shouldn't be. We got Bixby about 3 days ago, might have just not noticed the markings.

But for now since Yvonne said to keep the substrate dry, I will let it dry out a bit. Right now we have a wet, humid end a more dry end and the dryest end where he tends to sleep. Temp is about 80 and humidity is 80 as well. Now that we have our daytime UVA/B light the basking area is at 95. The basking area is also in the wet part of the tank (not wet but very moist).

We use cypress mulch substrate. Believe it was called forest floor.

Sounds like a good setup. I prefer moistened spaghnum for young red foots over cypress mulch, since its softer and allows them to burrow (a hatchling that size would enjoy it), but cypress works good as well. I raise all of the hatchling reds I produce in a terrarium, ambient temps about 82-84, moistened spaghnum moss as the substrate with piles of fluffed up spaghnum in the corners, constant access to water, and 90% humidity. I rarely have any issues with shell fungus in this environment and the young grow perfectly smooth.

 

[Ashley & Anthony DeGilio]

We do have the moss but as of the shell rot for now, we are keeping it dry. I will moisten it once we see the rot disappear.

We will throw it in so he can play though. He does like to try to burrow in corners