RES pyramiding shell

[gemisnake]

One of my turtles is showing signs of "pyramiding" on his shell. I want to stop this, fix whatever I am doing wrong, and even reverse the condition if that is possible. Any help is more than welcome.
Here is how he lives:
I purchased him in 2002 as a hatchling (captive-bred). His shell is about 6 1/2 inches long now. He lives in a 200 gallon plastic horse trough inside the house. There is no filter on the cage because they either dont work or the turtles destroy it. We have the python suction hose and the water is cleaned often and emptied completely at least every other week. He has wooden basking area where he can get completely dry and has access to a basking lamp for heat and a UV strip light for his health.
His diet is as varied as I can make it. He gets turtle pellets, goldfish, minnows, earthworms, frozen turtle diet, crickets, superworms, cockroaches and fresh greens (romaine usually). In the summer he gets small tadpoles, frogs, and crayfish as well and the occasional pinky mouse. I have never seen him actually eat the greens though.
He shares his tank with a female redear and a male paint (same size). These I both got as older turtles in 2004.
Only the one turtle is showing this problem. When he was young his setup was the same except that he had been in a glass aquarium not the larger plastic tub.
Is there anything I can do, why arent the others having the same problem with the same environment and diet?
Thanks, Sarah

[JuliusSqueezer]

Can you take a photo? I have never seen pyramiding on a slider before. Usually that's a tortoise problem...but I do know that what causes it with torts is calcium defeciency caused by either not enough calcium or not enough UVB which they need to metabolize vitamin D / calcium. There is also a good chance that your UV bulb is too far away or insufficient. If it is a screw in type bulb, it is the wrong kind all together. Petstores are marketing a screwin UV bulb that is UVA like plants need and some reptiles need a certain amount of UVA as well but also and mostly need UVB which these bulbs do not produce. Also even with a good bulb, the further away the bulb, the less UVB actually makes it to the critter and it doesn't have to be more than a foot or so away in many cases to render the bulb totally useless. I don't keep water turtles any more but I have. I do keep a sulcata though and I give her UVB all winter but leave her outside all spring, summer and early fall. 15 minutes of natural sunlight = about a week of good UVB bulb Perhaps pyramiding isn't the exact problem? There are other vitamin defeciencies that cause deformities. It sounds like you are doing great with diet except goldfish are toxic to most animals. They won't kill them right away but they aren't the best choice of feeder fish and there are a lot of other choices equally as inexpensive. Even shiner minnows or shad from a bait store would be a far better choice. The most common problem with sliders in captivity is Vitamin A defeciency but I don't think it causes carapace deformity. The first sign of Vitamin A defeciency is watery and/or swollen eyes, then lethargy, then RI...then a dead turtle. Please take a picture and post it. If it is pyramiding or any other deformity...you can correct and stop it from progressing but rarely if ever can actually reverse the damage.

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[NicoleRussell]

JuliusSqueezer wrote:
"If it is a screw in type bulb, it is the wrong kind all together. "

all MVB''s are screw in---it's the tubes that are marketed as perfect uvb producing bulbs that totally suck.
If it's a tube---somehow that's at least part of the problem I can assure you. Either bad output---too far ---too old (like 5 mintues old is too old) etc etc....that and heat is needed as well for complete penetration...and that's where a good MVB comes in.
Also---bulbs have hit (westron and mac anyway) a new level --totally mimicking the sun's . They can now make bulbs that are species habitat specific. Amazing really.
But jules is right--most bulbs are crap.
As far as filtration---every two weeks is too long to go in unfiltered water to make a change. If you were filtering it I would tell you it was too long. How many gallons are we talking about? Do you use any chemicals at all to cut nitrates ammonia or urates?
After about 7 days in about 50 gallons of FILTERED water from an animal that deficates the ph is out of wack, the ammonia and nitrate level are almost if not already toxic and conditions for a turtle or any other animal are very unhealthy---even if it LOOKS crystal clear.
Just FYI.

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[gemisnake]

The UV light is a zoomed reptisun 5.0 and is about 10 inches from the basking area. It is the strip light type. Is that close enough, I could only make it closer by increasing the water & basking area heigth.
As for something in the water, I use reptisafe water conditioner on all my turtles and amphibians. Their water is filtered out nightly but not by a filter, by the python suction hose. It drains right into our sink, then you turn a nob and fill back fresh water. about once every other week we do a complete water change instead of a partial.
I will try to borrow a digital camera and take a pic.
I just dont understand why the others are looking fine.
Aquatic turtles are a lot of work I know. When I got the first one I thought a 55 gallon tank would be its future home, needless to say we are planning on replacing the 200 gallon with a 350 gallon next spring. Then my snapper is moving to the 200 gallon from his 55 gallon because he will be big by then, he is one year old and 7 inches long already!

[NicoleRussell]

Does the turtle have a heat source?
10 inches is too far--how old is the bulb? You should seriously consider getting a MVB--perhaps a westron or Mac bulb.
The thing is --even if you have the tube 2 inches from the animal, it might be giving off little or no UVB---the only way to judge is with a uvb meter. An inch can change everything and nothing.....it is really individually bulb specific.
If you get a bulb that gives off (and has been pretested) for let's say 245 at 10 inches---then you can attempt to guess. But with a F Tube you are playing with the companies that produce them. And they blatantly lie about their products.
I use my tubes for ambient light now if at all.
I thought you said you change the water biweekly. My bad.
Buy one of those inexpensive kits for fresh watr aqua systems...and some dipsticks for nitrates. They come with graphs where you can see what's in your water. You can see how the water quality actually is after those partials. You should test primarily for ammonia levels and Nitrates---and basically the PH will automatically be all screwed up if those things are.
As far as filters you need at least 2x's the power it states on the box for reptiles. I use a fluval 404....is the 200 gallonns all water or water/land? How much is water?

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[JuliusSqueezer]

Ahh I should have qualified my bulb complaint better. There are some excelent bulbs out there but you won't find them at petco or petsmart or your local petstore or at least I never see them at any of those places here in my area. Maybe Nicole has a URL of where to order good bulbs. I still think that natural sunlight is best when possible. I admit, I use some crappy bulbs for my tort, iguana and bearded dragons but I live in Georgia and only have to use them for a few months per year and have never had a case of MBD pop up here. Some people think that putting the cage near a window where sunlight can shine through will give them proper UV exposure. It will not. Window glass filters out UV almost if not completely unless your windows were installed sometime before the beginning of the last century. This is why your carpet doesn't fade like it did in the early 1900s...and again...NO MORE GOLDFISH

How big were youre other turtles when you got them? It takes a pretty good while usually for deformities to surface visually and it is no surprise that if anything at all is out of whack it would show up on the one that's been there since it was a hatchling since whatever is wrong has probably been wrong all throughout it's early developmental days. Overall the diet seems really good. The bulb and/or water must be the problem. You might also consider a calcium supliment.