u/Exotic_Presence_8900

This may be more of a generalized aquarium question, but I just cleaned it out and they're stained with... Something? My mom thinks I should bleach them, but I don't know if it's actually an issue or just a visual thing from some sort of algae / bacteria that live in the filter sitting on it for too long. I'm also worried that if I bleach them it'll leach into the plastic and end up in the water and hurt my turtle.

I think the tubes are some sort of PVC. Clear bendy plastic (almost rubbery) that can stretch a little bit to be put on the various nozzles of the filter. The staining looks more brown in the pictures, but they're pretty pink looking to me.

UPDATE: Solved. Going to take her to the vet and do some serious work on improving her conditions. Thank you for the advice.

My 20 year old painted turtle (C. picta) has developed whitish patches and small pockmarks in her shell. They aren't very deep, don't have a noticeable smell, and her shell is still hard.

She's about 6.5 inches long (16.5 cm) and lives in a big 40 gallon tank where the dry portion doesn't subtract from the water area, but she hasn't had a heat / UV lamp for a bit, which I know is probably the source of the issue. We had to move somewhat recently due to a disaster that destroyed our old house - the old tank topper and lamp got ruined and we've been very busy - and we're finally working on getting new ones. We didn't want to put a lamp on top of our temporary (ill-fitted) topper in case it fell in the tank and caused a much more serious problem.

I suspect this is some kind of shell rot, but my mom is hesitant to take her to the vet, saying we should try to treat it at home first. Any advice? I'm really worried about her and don't want it to get any worse. <:(

I used to volunteer as a sprite artist on PokeFarm Q a few years ago and this is one of the Fakemon I designed! :) It was based off of a really old sketch in a notebook somewhere (I don't have access to it rn unfortunately) but I'm super happy with how it came out. You can read more about it on the site's wiki!

I left the team due to burnout, but I still think what they do is really cool and I love them a lot. <3

these are from a while ago (2024) but I'm still really happy with them 😄 lotta unowns because I was having a silly moment lol (all of them have shiny variants but they won't fit in the post)