RINOLDI CORNER

If your turtle refuses food, chances are the water is too cold! Is the thermostat working fine? If you feel that the water is cold, replace about 1/3 or 1/2 of the total water amount with hot water (take the turtle out of the tank as you do this). When you feel that the temperature is back to normal, then try to feed your turtle again. Allow some time. Try different kinds of food. She will eat again after a while! When water gets too cold turtle tries to hibernate, only that she can’t hibernate in captivity! But, she will try anyhow, and the first step to it is stop eating.

Together with this you may notice that your turtle is not basking, that she spends most of the time inside water. Try to force basking, taking the animal out of water and placing it in a top open cardboard box. Place a lamp outside, by the box, in a way that it lights  inside the box.

Have you observed some white spots in the turtle’s shell? Like white perforations? That is  a fungus, and it happens when water has been too cold and turtle spends longs periods of time without basking. Rub some bethadine on the white spots, and place the turtle in the “FORCED BASKING BOX” for a couple of hours. Do this daily, until the white spots disappear.

Filed under: Turtles