Hello, We live in northern MN and have recently had our adult RT of 18 months (as in we've had him that long, he was adopted as an adult) diagnosed with shell rot. We had read and read before adopting him, had taken him to our vet who is experienced with reptiles for his "new pet" check up 2 summers ago and again for a 1 year check this summer. He was doing great after having been in our home and care for a year. However, we noticed a "spot" on his plastron on Friday & took him into the vet immediately only to discover his shell has been rotting from the "inside-out". He goes back Monday to have debris removed and we are following a strict regiment of soaking daily with antibiotics and starting oral or injected antibiotics Monday. The assumed culprit is lack of humidity in his enclosure and we are taking many steps to change his cage to make it more sterile for his time of healing. I don't need anyone hounding us on having let his shell "get to this point." We feel guilty and confused enough, having thought we were doing things well. I am joining for encouragement and information. We thought we were doing well and had read SO much from russiantortoise.net and other sources, but it turns out the dryness of a MN winter was too much for him this year all though last winter he made it through all right. Unless the culprit was some form of bacteria and fungus, which our vet said we can have a blood test done to diagnose, but she feels a broad spectrum antibiotic would be more beneficial. For now he will be in a slightly smaller cage as we guide him through the healing process, but we will be building him a custom tortoise table over the summer and would love to see/discuss plans for those if anyone has recommendations. The tortoise (Munchy) technically belongs to my 8 year old son and he (like myself) is having a hard time emotionally with this situation.