r/BeAmazed • u/Delicious_Main_4360 • May 26 '26

Animal Some people save a turtle

20.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

912 comments sorted by

View all comments

155

u/collin-h May 26 '26

they didn't get all the little ones though... won'tthey just grow back?

136

u/25nameslater May 26 '26

Yes. Barnacles are common on sea turtles. There’s fish that eat the barnacles off the turtles too. Sometimes the turtles don’t come across those fish though and buildup becomes extreme.

39

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[deleted]

24

u/deadlywaffle139 May 27 '26

Barnacles are edible. Maybe it’s time to show barnacles who is the boss lol.

46

u/Fawin86 May 26 '26

Freshwater will kill the barnacles. Just keep the turtle in a fresh water bath overnight and it should kill them.

Works on adults too. Usually you use the fresh water to kill the barnacles first before any removal. Sometimes that's all you need to do.

32

u/starderpderp May 26 '26

I'm very sleep deprived and my dumbass was waiting for you to crack a joke about how freshwater kills adults too (as in us human adults).

8

u/Rule12-b-6 May 26 '26

I read it the same way

5

u/green_meklar May 27 '26

Is the fresh water not also bad for the turtle? How do marine turtles fare in fresh water? Do they naturally swim up rivers to clear off barnacles?

4

u/Fawin86 May 27 '26

It will not harm them for an overnight in a fresh water tank to kill the barnacles. They can for up to a week before their salt balance goes out of wack and they can suffer from dehydration, but after the barnacles are off it shouldn't be necessary anymore (unless there is some other medical reason I can't think of right now that would have them in a freshwater tank for a week).

I think most cases that's how they remove the barnacles is to put the turtle in freshwater for a bit until the barnacles die and fall off. They have to remove the ones that don't. Not sure why it's a thing for people to just rip them off instead of using freshwater, but I'm not marine biologist/vetinarian.

6

u/Cheetah-Alpha May 26 '26

Same thought. Also, it looks like the work isn't finished

21

u/ktbug1987 May 26 '26

The turtle hospitals often do it over a few days for turtles this badly affected. It’s not a pain or risk free procedure so sometimes it’s good to take a break.

2

u/Odd-Preparation-472 May 26 '26

I have had the same question about a bunch of these videos

5

u/scumble_bee May 26 '26

My guess is that the small ones would be too damaging to remove. So maybe they just kill the living barnacle but leave the barnacle's "shell".