Why Is My Turtle Sneezing? (Should I Be Worried?)

Turtles are fascinating creatures that can make great pets, but just like any other pet, they can also experience health problems. If you have noticed your turtle sneezing, you may be wondering what could be causing this. In this article, we will explore some of the reasons why turtles sneeze and what you can do to help your pet.

Turtles will sneeze from time to time, most often this is caused by a small irritation of the airways. The only time you should be worried is when it happens frequently, as this can be a sign of an Upper Respiratory Tract Disease (URTD) and will require immediate veterinary care.

Now, let’s take a closer look at what could be making your turtle sneeze, what you can do to stop it and how to differentiate a simple sneeze from an Upper Respiratory Tract Disease.

Why Turtles Sneeze

First, let’s take a look at this video and see how a turtle sneezes. Due to the way turtles organs are positioned, and the way their lungs work, their sneezes don’t sound the same way as human or other animal sneeze.

The sound of a turtle sneeze is more similar to what we would describe as a squeak than a sneeze.

Now, let see why turtles sneeze.

Blocked Airways

One reason why turtles sneeze is because they have something stuck in their nasal passages. This can happen if your turtle accidentally inhales debris, such as substrate, food, or bedding. If this is the case, your turtle may also rub its nose on surfaces to try and dislodge the blockage.

Overall, it’s not something good that your turtle has something stuck in its nose or throat, but if the stuck debris hasn’t caused any damage, there is no reason for concern.

In most cases, if a turtle is able to remove the debris by itself, it will do so in a couple of hours. IF not, you want to see a vet to help remove the object that is locking the airways.

The best way to avoid this problem is to make sure that the tank of your turtle is completely clean, and that there are no pieces of food, or any kind of debris floating around. I will go over in more detail on how to do this at the end of the article, for now we will stick to covering all the possibilities of why your turtle is sneezing, and the next one on the list is environmental factors.

Environmental Factors

Just like any other animal that is breathing, turtles can sneeze due to dust.

Dust can gather in the air for many reasons, like recently cleaning the house, doing some renovations, or simply living in an area with a lot of dust in the air.

But another possible cause, that is not that common, is a recent change of the substrate in the basking area. Most substrates that you can buy from the store, weather is dirt, rocks, straws, etc. are usually full of dust. And this dust will go up in the air when your turtle steps on it, and it will make it sneeze.

Overall the dust from the substrate should be harmless, but I would advise washing absolutely anything that you want to add to the tank or basking area of your turtle, this way you can avoid problems like sneezing and even more serious ones like infections, or disease.

Upper Respiratory Tract Disease

Respiratory infections can be caused by a variety of factors, including poor water quality, low temperatures, and stress.

If your turtle has a respiratory infection, they will usually have other symptoms, such as a lack of appetite, lethargy, and nasal discharge.

The only thing that you can do it this case is to go to a veterinary. And you want to go to one as soon as possible. Turtles don’t usually exhibit clear signs that they are sick, and they usually only become clearer when they get worse. So as soon as you notice that something is wrong with your turtle, you should go to the vet immediately.

How to Prevent Your Turtle From Sneezing

While sneezing is something normal, that can happen to everybody from time to time, excessive sneezing is not a good thing, and if your turtle is sneezing too often is usually a sign that something wrong is happening. And whether that is a blocked airway, or a disease, there are a lot of things that you can do to prevent those things, and the most important one is to keep the tank clean.

Keeping the Tank Clean

I won’t cover step by step how to clean your tank, but I will go over some of the essential things that you should know, that are often overlooked. But if you want a more detailed guide, you can check out this article: How Often Should I Clean My Turtle’s Tank? (Beginners Guide).

The two most important things when it comes to keeping the tank clean is having a tank that is big enough, and the proper filter. And while it sounds simple enough, there are a few tricky things that you should know, and the first one is how big the tank should be.

The size of the tank is the most important thing when it comes to cleanliness, and this is for a very simple reason. The more water you have in the tank, the longer it will take for it to get dirty. So the bigger the tank the better.

There is no such thing as a tank that is too big for a turtle, but instead, it’s quite easy to go for a tank that is too small. There is a rule of thumb when it comes to turtle tanks, and it says that the tank needs to be able to hold 10 gallons of water for every inch of shell your turtle has.

If your turtle has a 6-inch shell, and the tank can only hold 20 gallons, it doesn’t matter that you are cleaning it two times a week, it will still get dirty the next day. And this means that there will be debris floating around, that can get stuck in your turtle’s airways, and that there is a good chance that harmful bacteria will start to appear and multiply.

Now, having more water in the tank is great, but if you don’t have something to keep that water clean, it will still get dirty in a week or so. This is why you need a water filter in the tank.

A good water filter will be able to keep your tank clean for 2 or 3 weeks, without you having to do anything. But a bad water filter won’t be able to keep up with your turtle and in just a few days, the tank will be a mess.

And surprisingly enough, most people choose to buy the wrong water filter for their tanks. And when I say wrong, I don’t mean the wrong model or the wrong brand, no. The problem is that those filters don’t have enough power.

Filters are rated based on how much water they can cycle, so we have 20-gallon water filters 40-gallon water filters, 60-gallon water filters, and so on. The problem is that most of those filters are rated for fish tanks, not for turtle tanks. And the amount of mess a fish mess doesn’t even compare to the mess a turtle makes.

For a turtle tank, you should get double the power that the tank needs. So if you have a 40 gallons tank you should get a filter that is rated for 80 gallons, not for 40. If you have a 60 gallons tank, then you should get a 120 gallons water filter, not 60, and so on.

You can always go higher, this will only keep the tank clean for longer. But going lower will usually mean that you will have to clean the tank a lot more often, and the water will start to smell bad really soon.

Other Things That You Can Do to Prevent Excessive Sneezing

Keeping the tank clean is essential, but is not the only thing that you can do to prevent excessive sneezing.

Making sure that your turtle has a good and balanced diet, this will ensure that your turtle has a strong immunity system, which can fight off any potential infection.

A good and balanced diet, doesn’t only mean that your turtle should eat good and healthy food, while that is important, it’s also important that your turtle has a proper feeding schedule, and that you make sure that you give it enough food.

Turtles can survive even if you don’t give them enough food, and they will look the same, but their immunity system won’t be as efficient. Turtles will also eat as much food as they have in front of them, even if they are technically full, and this can lead to other health problems.

If you already have a feeding schedule, and you know how to portion your turtle’s food, then it’s great. If you don’t, I would recommend you to check out this article where I cover everything in detail and I provide a few possible feeding schedules: How Much and How Often Should I Feed My Turtle? +Schedule

And just as important is to make sure that the basking area is in order. While at first sight, it might seem that turtles use the basking area to simply take a nap and rest a little. It actually serves some essential turtle needs.

The first one being temperature control. Turtles are cold-blooded, which means that they can’t generate their own body heat, so without a properly heated basking area they will be constantly cold, which can lead to a lot of health problems, including catching a cold, which means sneezing.

Another thing that turtles do while basking, is getting rid of the bacteria that get stuck on their shell and skin while they are it the water.

If you want an in-depth guide on what light bulbs to use in the basking area, and more importantly how far to position them from your turtle, you should check out this article, where I go over the exact way you should position each light bulb in the basking area: Best Turtle Light Bulb (Illustrated Buyers Guide).

Final Thoughts

Turtles can sneeze do to a lot of reasons, but in most cases, excessive sneezing is a clear sign that something is not right. That something can be insignificant, like a lot of dust in the room after you cleaned some shelves, or it can be something serious as an infection.

If you can’t exactly pinpoint the reason why your turtle is sneezing, I would recommend you to go to the vet for a checkup. Turtles will rarely show signs of illness, unless they are very sick, so you don’t want to waste any time if symptoms are showing.

I hope this article answered all of your questions about turtles and how and why they sneeze. If you have any other questions regarding turtles, feel free to leave them in the comment section, my colleagues and I regularly check the comment section and answer all the questions that we can find.