Peeling plastron

[Ivyna J. Spyder]

Basic care info and such-
5" carapace
About 2 years old
Eats mostly mixed greens (spring mix, collards, kale, mustard, weeds in the right time of year) some veggies and some mazuri twice a week. Greens are dusted with calcium.
40 gallon vivarium with layered bioactive substrate (soil/coir mix with cypress mulch on top)
Misted twice a day
Low level UVB fluorescent light
Temp range from mid 70's to mid to high 80's

I've been having this long term issue with my red-foot's shell. It just gets... peely and yuck looking, like it's all scraped up. It's not soft and I don't see any white spots at least.

It seems to be from excess humidity, but the tank has plenty of dry spots, yet she always digs down to the moist part of the soil so she's basically always kind of soaking. She has lots of dry hides to choose from so I dunno why she does it.

Should I remove the soil completely? Let it dry out? :\

And does the top of her shell look okay?

 

[ascott]

so she's basically always kind of soaking.

Do you actually mean soaking? Or is the substrate simply damp...can you reach into the tank to the wet substrate, grab a handful, give it a squeeze---does water come out? if so, then you are keeping the substrate a bit too wet...and yes, dry it out some....do you pour water into the substrate every day?

 

[Ivyna J. Spyder]

so she's basically always kind of soaking.

Do you actually mean soaking? Or is the substrate simply damp...can you reach into the tank to the wet substrate, grab a handful, give it a squeeze---does water come out? if so, then you are keeping the substrate a bit too wet...and yes, dry it out some....do you pour water into the substrate every day?

Ehehe, no it's not quite THAT damp... there's a drainage layer of rocks and such so it's just slightly moist.

But if even that little bit seems to be causing a problem with her shell... well I'm at a bit of a loss since it's been the only way I've been able to keep the humidity up at all, using the substrate like that :T

 

[ascott]

Hmmmm? Well if I were faced with this dilemma I have to say I would dry him out for awhile to see if that would make a positive change....I would soak him each day for about 30-45 minutes...then would dry him and his shell thoroughly then put him in a dry enclosure....now, the others may have a better suggestion or share a different method....also your tort is already a couple years old so I don't believe a short stint of dry out time to resolve the issue will damage your tort...you know?

Wait around to see what the others think...the more the merrier