I'm worried about scale rot, but I'm not sure if I need to be?

Hey All, thanks in advance for any advice or feedback here.

I noticed the other day that my three-year old BP, Braska, was out an about in his tub during the day. I generally don't see him out except in the middle of the night, but I didn't think much of it. I found him out again later that day, and again the following day (yesterday). I took him out for some inspection to make sure everything looks okay, and I found some darker spots on his belly, as if his scale pattern is continuing onto the belly. I'm thinking that if this is scale rot, I caught it early and it should be pretty manageable to treat, even though it's pretty spread out throughout his belly. I hope I'm not too far off with this assumption.

These were the best pics I could get, since it's rather difficult to hold the little guy in place with one hand while taking the photos. The second one here shows his neck into his upper-belly which is mostly all pure white, but he has plenty of spots farther down his belly. I feel like I remember the belly always being pure-white all the way through; is that generally true for BPs? He does not have any pink blisters as I've seen in pictures.

If it is scale rot, my first moves will be to wash/soak him in a chlorhexidine solution and apply neosporin (sans pain reliever) to the affected areas in an against-the grain fashion to ensure that it gets underneath to the affected areas. I'll temporarily change his bedding to newspaper and/or paper towels (I currently use Kritter's Crumble coconut husk) and swap in a smaller water bowl. I'll note that his current setup maintains about 55% humidity which I'm pretty sure is spot on, but it's been in the mid-80s (84-86) as far as temperature goes, so I'll be sure to get that up to 90.

https://imgur.com/a/ORg5Yds

Thoughts? Thanks!

Looks like pigmentation to me. They can have darkness on their bellies as part of their pattern. Super clean white bellies are not very common unless it’s a trait of a specific morph.


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Thanks alittleFREE, I'm very relieved to hear you say that. I was really hoping that was the case, but I got into the "He's out of his hides all day, so something has to be wrong" mentality and got a bit nervous.

Either way, I'm going to keep a close eye on him for the next week/month and make sure the markings don't change or progress into anything.

Just looks like his coloring to me. I wouldn't stress.

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