AboutMark Adkins Expertise I will be glad to help with your tortoise- and turtle-related questions. My specialty is Red-foot and other Tortoises, but I can help with many aspects of turtle care.
Understand- I am not a vet, and the more information you can give me, the more accurate my answer can be.
(Because of the number of questions I get, I reserve the right to direct you to a good website that will help rather than re-inventing the wheel.)
Experience Tortoise and other reptile keeper since 1964.
Member of the Nebraska Herpetological Society.
Author of books and articles on tortoise care.
Currently own five Red-foot Tortoises.
Expert: Mark Adkins Date: 7/4/2008 Subject: red eared slider
Question Hi. I have two red-eared sliders, one male and one female, in a 30 gallon tank. My male eats like a pig and is really alert. My female hardly ever eats, sleeps all day, and when in the water she just floats. she doesn't swim. I took her to the vet about 4 weeks ago and he gave me baytril drops and diagnosing her with pneumonia. At that time she had snot coming out of her nose and would constantly have a bubbly nose. Now, after giving her all of her medication she still will not eat. We are feeding them tetrafana sticks. and she is still sleeping all of the time. We began force feeding her today. I don't know what else to do.
The water temp is at 80 degrees.
We clean there tank thorougly once a week.
We have a waterfall filter.
We have a Basking light and a red UVA light.
We have two areas for them to pull themselves up on.
And there are 3 feeder fish in the tank.
On the weekends we bring them out of there tank and let them enjoy some natural sunlight.
We bought them about two months ago and they both looked more alert than the rest.
They are both shedding.
When we bought them they were both the same size. Now the male is growing like crazy and the female hasn't grown much at all. It almost looks like her legs are beginning to look a little skinnier.
I called the vet and he said try Vitamin A drops but I can't find it at any store. Even the specialty stores. he doesn't have any on him. If I can't find it then I have to drive an hour and a half away to get it. Which I don't mind but I want to see if there is an alternative.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated and is much needed. Thank you so much.
Answer I thought I already answered this, so forgive me if this is a duplicate, or delayed! My computer may have eaten my earlier response.
My first thought is aggression from overcrowding. Turtles in the wild rarely hang-out unless they are mating, fighting, or basking. A 30 gallon tank is the right size for a single 2" long (shell length) turtle, and too small for two. When a turtle, especially the aggressive Red-ear Slider, is crowded or feels its territory is threatened, it may become aggressive by biting or other visible displays, or 'quietly' aggressive by blocking access to food, good hiding or basking sites, etc.
Your female sounds like an abused turtle.
The common treatments are either separation or a VERY big tank (figure 10 gallons of water per inch of shell length total.)
Vitamin A eye drops are a treatment for a lack of Vit. A in the diet- which mostly affects Box Turtles, rarely water turtles given good pellets.
You have obviously done a lot of research, but gotten some outdated info. For example:
- Red UVA does nothing too helpful for turtles.
- UVB/natural sunlight does little as long as the diet offers vitamin D3- usually in the pellets and meat foods.
- Diet could use tweaking with the addition of live or frozen/thawed 'fish foods' like worms, small fish, shrimp, etc.
