Maggie's RES question...

[Maggie Cummings]

This is my Scruffie. She's in about 300 gallons of water with a cave and a basking platform. Her light is generally a 100 watt incandescent bulb and at times I remember to turn on a 10.0 UVB light. She is put out in a pond liner in the Spring and Summer but all winter she lives in my carport shed. Her carapace was looking odd so I dry docked her for several hours pouring Nolvasan over her periodically. Her loose scutes popped off easily as I sat beside her for about 45 minutes helping them off with a sharp orange stick. There was a white powder under the loose scutes as well as algae. So what do you think? Massive shell rot? I am pointing at a white spot that looks like bone. It is hard and doesn't look or smell like rot. Nowhere on her is soft or smells but her shell doesn't quite look right so I just thought I would gather some opinions from those smarter than I. I have had her for about 7 years, she was a dog-chewed rescue hence the name Scruffie. She's not very pretty but she's hell on wheels for a turtle weighing over 10 pounds and she'll bite your hand off at your elbow and nothing I do has calmed her down any. She's just mean as a rattler...But I still try to keep her in a good way, so what do you guys think? Powdery mildew or shell rot and what should I do about it?

popped off scutes

Probably nothing is wrong she just looks bad. Thanks for any advice about her, she is one of my favorites even as mean as she is. I should have taken a picture of her face with her open mouth ready to bite...

 

[terracolson]

sorry i dont know, but I know some one will.. I come to you for my answers

 

[dmmj]

I did a bing search and it looks like to me either fungus or mildew, I am leaning towards fungus myself, one of the descriptions of it, was that it was spongy like, is it spongy like?

 

[Kristina]

Could it be hard water residue?

 

[Yvonne G]

I think you should scrub her with a soft bristle brush and some Nolvesan. Usually when the top layer of keratin pops off its pretty and fresh new shell underneath. I don't know why Scruffie's shell looks like that.

 

[Shelly]

Several of my Sliders have white spots like that.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

I did a bing search and it looks like to me either fungus or mildew, I am leaning towards fungus myself, one of the descriptions of it, was that it was spongy like, is it spongy like?

No it's powdery like... I can scrape it off with the pad of my finger...

 

[chadk]

If it bacterial or fungal in nature, you could try mixing up a solution of GSE (grapfruit seed extract) and water. Some ACV (apple cider vinegar) and maybe a bit of tea tree oil mixed in might help too.

About once a week a add GSE or ACV to all my animals water dishes (goats, dogs, reptiles, etc).

 

[Maggie Cummings]

If it bacterial or fungal in nature, you could try mixing up a solution of GSE (grapfruit seed extract) and water. Some ACV (apple cider vinegar) and maybe a bit of tea tree oil mixed in might help too.

About once a week a add GSE or ACV to all my animals water dishes (goats, dogs, reptiles, etc).

I appreciate your advice, but an animal that lives in 300 gallons of water kinda doesn't have a water dish. Do you think I should just add a little bit of either of those to her tank?

 

[chadk]

LOL. Yes, that is what I meant - add drops of GSE to the tank. And you could mix up a slightly higher concentrate (all the above ingredients) in a spray bottle and let it soak into the shell while you let her sit out of her water tank.

I also meant to include this link:
http://www.nutriteam.com/water.htm