Weepy water eye

[Rachelcoul91]

hi everyone.

Weve just noticed tortoise is keeping one eye closed, when he does open it, yes very watery and abit cloudy looking, weve looked and it doesnt seem to be an infection because its only one eye.

Does anyone know what it could be?

 

[Matt j Harris]

What substrate are you using?

 

[wellington]

Are you using the coul type CFL bulbs?

 

[Rachelcoul91]

We are using a combined heat &UV bulb, and our substrate is 90% topsoil & 10% playsand, I understand sand can irritate there eyes, but it is only 1 eye that is irritated

 

[Matt j Harris]

I use soil and sand which is recommended by probably the best source of tortoise care so I wouldn't think it's that is the bulb coiled?

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Is your bulb spiral or coil? We have learned over the years that sand 'can' cause impaction.My computer is freaking out I apologize if anyone gets an inaproprete post. My son was supposed to come several hours ago to fix it. I should have known better.

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[Rachelcoul91]

We have the Arcadia D3 combined heat & uv lamp which isn't coiled I don't think. We washed his eye and it seemed abit better but then he just doesn't open it as much as the other eye.

 

[Matt j Harris]

@HermanniChris is the best guy for advice on here hopefully he'll be able to help you

 

[Matt j Harris]

Also can you post pics?

 

[Rachelcoul91]

Thankyou xx

 

[wellington]

@HermanniChris is the best guy for advice on here hopefully he'll be able to help you

Yes he is one of many on here. @Yvonne G though actually does a lot of rehabbing with the ones she takes in to rehome.
An eye saline solution can be used or when soaking, lightly let the warm water run over the eye. It's possible there is a piece of sand in it. Btw, sand is not needed, so next time you switch out the substrate, forget the sand. It can cause impaction and possible eye irritation. So if it's not needed, why use it?

 

[Matt j Harris]

The reason why I use it is because it's the closest thing to natural habitat u can get in an indoor enclosures there are loads of differing opinions on tortoise keeping but I've exchanged many emails with Chris and the work he's done with tortoises over many years I took he's advice and my tortoise is thriving

 

[HermanniChris]

Yvonne should be able to shed some light on this.

Follow the guidelines Wellington has offered in regards to the solution.

Just because it is one eye does not mean it's not infection.

It could be a vitamin deficiency.

Start with warm soaks but solely blaming sand isn't going to help here. It's what is natural to these tortoises 24/7 and if sand were always the case, we'd see an awful amount of eye problems in nature.

Unless the substrate is super sand heavy, then that is another story and yes in great amounts it can cause impaction.

Anything could be in its eye. Soil, sand, dust...you name it.

They spend all their time on the ground so these things are possible.

Has anything fallen into the substrate or were there traces of any soap/cleaning agent in a dish, bowl or on anything else in the enclosure?

I had this happen with a few babies years back. I was in a rush and some soap was still left over in a dish. After about 2 weeks of constant soaks, the eyes on the 2 tortoises affected by this cleared up fine.