Pelodiscus sinensis - Fungus?

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sajica

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Feb 21, 2006
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Hello,
I have a chinese softshell which is close to a year old and notice a couple of white spots on the shell around 2mm in diametre and looks alittle indented. Would this be shell fungus?
My softy has a basking spot but doesnt ever use it and prefers to stick its neck out while clinging to the side of a heater or filter intake. I must admit I could be feeding maybe more calcium rich foods, currently eating a mix of different cichlid pellets, krill, scallops, bloodworm and brineshrimp. Would this be the cause?
Tank is a 100g filtered with 2 cannisters.

I decided today to take him out of the tank which is first time its been out and put him in a tub in the sun for awhile and put some betadine on the white spots...

Any suggestions for healing and future prevention?

cheers
 
Also wondering do chinese softys need to be kept in heated aquaria all year round or can they be kept outdoors? Gets to about 3'C in the winter at night. If so was thinking of building an outdoor pond for it.
 
Chinese softys hail from a large distribucion area including south Siberia but now they are assumed to be several species insted of one and all the ones avaible in the trade come from the southern areas (and they are likely hibrids) so it is not a good idea to keep them outdoors year round, if you could get specimens form the northern range that would be possible but these simply dont have the survival abilitys to survive so low winter temps. But you can and should keep it outside during warmer mouths;) make shure the pond is deep and big(but also keep track of your turtle so you can remove it when it is needed), that you have a good scape proof fence and ad some nice aquatic plants.
What you descrive may or may not be fungus, Ive seen that on the softys I have and had over the years and many times it is simply the normal shell growth, but if it apears infected, redish or if it forms a cotton apearence then it is defenetly fungus. Keep a close eye on it and if need be treat in a separate bugget with TETRA`s general topic. You should ad more food items like tetra reptomin, earthworms, snails, small healty fish (mosquito fish or guppys, raised by yourself and guttloaded, never pet shop ones and never goldfish) and stuff like grasshoppers, small crayfish and crickets
 
thanks coura, will try to vary more the foods and monitor how it goes. If it gets worse I'll post some pictures up.
 
Been a few weeks but the area i thought was fungus developing I now ashamedly worked out the problem. When I first bought the sinensis I was housing it with some fish while it was young. I moved all the fish out except one - a pleco. One night I turned the light on and saw the pleco sucking on the softys shell...I cant believe I didn't work this out before. Anyway pleco has been removed and the softys shell is looking good....love this little guy the way he buries himself in the sand poking his long neck out looking like an eel..
 
Terramycin being a medication? Not sure why. The issue is healed up on its own and don't usually like adding meds unless serious.

cheers
 
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