Red Eared Slider Hatchling - Potential Respiratory Infection?

My wife and son got 2 red eared slider hatchlings last week. They are about the size of a silver dollar. They lived in a small turtle container/our bathtub for a week while we assembled a 40G breeder tank for then with UVB and heater bulbs and a couple of turtle docks. We put them in the 40G the day before y’day. It has.a container filter that tends to push them toward one end of the tank with its current.

One dives all the time and spends most of his time sitting in a hornwort plant.

The other likes to hang out on the turtle dock or floating in the water near the turtle dock. He also likes to hang out underneath the turtle dock, underwater for long periods. He is also eating, he took down a piece of shrimp in a couple gulps. I have seen him swim around, but I haven’t seen him dive like the other one.

Of course, they have only been in the big tank for 48 hours.

It is too soon to worry about whether the one that tends to stay near the surface might have a respiratory infection?

 

As long as you don’t notice any other symptoms, I would just keep an eye on him.

You want to watch for •mucus bubbles around the nose and eyes •lack of appetite •awkward floating and swimming (floating on one side, sinking and struggling to get the the surface, swimming sideways, etc) •stretching his neck far out for large gulps of air

If you notice any of these symptoms you’ll want to get the turtle to a vet and they’ll prescribe antibiotics.

 

Thanks!

 

How are they doing in the 40?

 

We took them to the vet. They seem fine. One was basically living on the bottom of the tank and the other near the top.

We took some water out of the tank to lower the water level and now even the smaller one is on the water more. Diving more, but still often not as deep as the other one.

It seems like it was almost psychological in terms of preferring the shallower water.

We have 10 zebra danio in with the turtles, knowing they might get eaten. Our cautious diver was seen eating one of the fish. Don’t know if he caught it.