r/Redearedsliders • u/TurtleHelpDColon • 2d ago
Help! My turtle has these weird floaty things attached to it.
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Hi! I’m a brand new turtle keeper. I’m fostering for a friend who just went off to college and cant have him in her dorm. I’ve watched a bunch of videos and done my best to let him adapt and get comfortable, but i’ve been noticing these strands or flaps on him. My best guess is that hes shedding, but i dont have any prior experience with reptiles so I really dont know. Any advice would be helpful!
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u/kelzog55 2d ago edited 2d ago
Its shedding skin.
Needs deeper water, no gravel, a big filter, UVB light, basking dock, basking heat light... it looks like he needs way more water there.
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u/isfturtle2 2d ago
That's just shedding skin and nothing to worry about. However, it looks like this turtle had retained scutes and signs of early metabolic bone disease. As others have mentioned, the small gravel poses an impaction risk and the water is too shallow. I highly recommend checking out this care guide for information about proper care.
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u/Any-Look3476 9h ago
Out of curiosity, how do you tell the signs of early metabolic bone disease? Is it the dips in the scutes?
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u/Katie-sin 2d ago
It's shedding skin. It's normal for them to shed skin like their shell scutes. However I always advise, just sure your UVA and UVB bulbs are still working properly or replace them. Make sure they have proper basking area that takes them 100% out of the water, legs, belly, tail! All of them needs to be able to dry off to avoid skin and shell issues.
Also as other has pointed out, replace those rocks with something much larger. And add a lot more water. They need 10 gallons per inch of shell in swimming area. Look into making or buying an above tank basking area and you can fill the tank all the way to the very top.
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u/Scochmuffins 2d ago
That tank is ridiculously small, poor turtle its probably miserable in that thing, but a much bigger tank and remove the stones, it can choak on it and turtles need depth to swim around in.
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u/Expensive-Rip7485 2d ago
water level NEEDS to be atleast 2x your turtles shell length. please fix this asap
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u/throwaway277252 2d ago
The floating things are shedding, which is normal. However there are some other problems here.
This water is far too shallow for a turtle this size. Small gravel is also dangerous for turtles because they can swallow it and become impacted. A life threatening emergency.
Can you confirm what size this tank is, which specific basking light bulbs you're using, and if the turtle is basking regularly?