I know, I know, shell rot has been addressed 1000 times, but I have a question regarding duration.
My red foot has a case of shell rot. It's just some white/pale spots between the scutes of the top of his carapace. He's an adult male about 10" scl, and I am pretty sure that I can pinpoint the reason why he has it. I used to keep him on dirt until fairly recently (switched to cypress a couple months ago, which I much prefer!). There were quite a few times in his recent past where I found him laying upside down in a mud puddle after spilling his water into the dirt, so I was thinking that these episodes might have had something to do with it. Anyway, I fixed the problem over the past few months by first switching to cypress and then building a new, larger enclosure so he does not feel the need to be destructive and/or flip over trying to climb out. However, in November I noticed that he did get shell rot, and by the time I noticed it there was one patch that was pretty severe, but the rest where not too bad.
So that brings us up to today, which is almost two months into his treatment, and I have only noticed significant improvement in the most severe spots. The first two days I cleaned it with betadine, then I started cleaning it with nolvasan (just rubbing it in to the affected spots with a cue tip) and some clotrimazole (anti-fungal) cream. I do this twice a day, but I recently stopped using the cream because I was thinking that maybe it was actually creating a barrier so the nolvasan wasn't getting to the affected areas to clean them out.
So there has been some improvement, but only minor improvement, and two months seems like a long time for only minor improvement. I was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions? Like I said, it's the most severe patches that are actually showing steady improvement, but the smaller patches seem somewhat undisturbed by the treatment (perhaps because they are under the surface of the scutes?).
Just looking for some advice. Otherwise the red foot is very healthy. He is always up doing something, and eats well. I am not that good with red foots, I kind of specialize in russians So I figured someone else out there would be much more knowledgeable on the subject than I.
Thanks in advance!
My red foot has a case of shell rot. It's just some white/pale spots between the scutes of the top of his carapace. He's an adult male about 10" scl, and I am pretty sure that I can pinpoint the reason why he has it. I used to keep him on dirt until fairly recently (switched to cypress a couple months ago, which I much prefer!). There were quite a few times in his recent past where I found him laying upside down in a mud puddle after spilling his water into the dirt, so I was thinking that these episodes might have had something to do with it. Anyway, I fixed the problem over the past few months by first switching to cypress and then building a new, larger enclosure so he does not feel the need to be destructive and/or flip over trying to climb out. However, in November I noticed that he did get shell rot, and by the time I noticed it there was one patch that was pretty severe, but the rest where not too bad.
So that brings us up to today, which is almost two months into his treatment, and I have only noticed significant improvement in the most severe spots. The first two days I cleaned it with betadine, then I started cleaning it with nolvasan (just rubbing it in to the affected spots with a cue tip) and some clotrimazole (anti-fungal) cream. I do this twice a day, but I recently stopped using the cream because I was thinking that maybe it was actually creating a barrier so the nolvasan wasn't getting to the affected areas to clean them out.
So there has been some improvement, but only minor improvement, and two months seems like a long time for only minor improvement. I was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions? Like I said, it's the most severe patches that are actually showing steady improvement, but the smaller patches seem somewhat undisturbed by the treatment (perhaps because they are under the surface of the scutes?).
Just looking for some advice. Otherwise the red foot is very healthy. He is always up doing something, and eats well. I am not that good with red foots, I kind of specialize in russians So I figured someone else out there would be much more knowledgeable on the subject than I.
Thanks in advance!