How can you tell if a turtle is a water turtle or a land turtle?

A quick yet comprehensive guide on how to know if your water turtle is sick and what to do then. Being water turtles rather uncommon pets people don’t usually know a lot about them, and what is less known is how to recognize when they start to get sick. Since little is known about water turtles illnesses compared to dogs’ and cats’ picking out the soonest when a turtle shows some symptoms is of key importance.

Once you’ve stated that your turtle is sick you should bring it as soon as possible to a veterinary who’s expert on reptiles. In fact most veterinaries do not know how to treat a reptile and they can end up causing more damage than what’s already been done. Keep the turtle warm: you may want to raise a little bit the aquarium’s temperature but the important thing is that there must not be sudden changes in temperature since these add to the turtle’s stress and make it more difficult for the turtle’s body to deal with the situation.

If the turtle doesn’t eat, force it to. If you block the turtle and place food in front of its mouth after a while the turtle will start to get nervous and bite. It is of utmost importance that the turtle keeps eating because without energy it won’t be capable of fighting the illness.

You can even feed it with a dietary supplement but you must first refer to a veterinary for the right one and the right dosage. Be careful not to stress the turtle too much: for example, although it's important that the turtle eats, if you just spent your last 15 minutes trying to make it eat something and it just won’t work let it go and wait for the veterinary to tell you what to do. If you fear the illness might be contagious and you have more than one turtle separate the two of them by putting one in a different aquarium.

If the illness is infectious - and in most cases it is! - you might want to brush the turtle’s shell with a little bit of vinegar or tincture of iodine to disinfect it. Carrying a sick turtle to the veterinary can be a problem: first, you have to keep the turtle wet but you must not carry it in a tank full of water otherwise it will frequently hit the tank’s sides; second, you have to keep the turtle warm if it’s winter.

The answer to these two problem is actually quite simple. To prevent the turtle from injuries while keeping it wet you just have to fold several times a large piece of cloth ad put it at the bottom of the tank. You will then soak it in water and place the turtle on it: the reptile won’t float and bang against the sides and at the same time it will be in a humid environment.

To keep the environment warm during the winter I usually place the tank in an open thermal bag with a few hand-warmers (hand-warmers are tiny packages which heat up and are used to warm your hands in winter - you can find them in any sporting goods store for a low price) around it to keep the temperature high. I hope this guide was helpful to any who has to deal with an unpleasant situation such as having to do with a sick water turtle, but most of all I hope it’ll be helpful for the turtles themselves!