TortoiseForum.org

Hello fellow tortoise lovers!

My boyfriend and I bought a 6-month old leopard on Thursday. We're quite worried about the little guy, and since neither of us have owned tortoises before, we aren't sure if what our guy is doing is normal. We've done a lot of research, but have found very little information on young tortoises specifically.

Let me tell you a little about our tank set-up and such. We have a 10 gallon tank with a UVA/UVB light and one of those red heat lamps. We also have a space heater going in the room, keeping the temp between 78-90 degrees at all times within the tank. The humidity is 30-35%, and we have a dehumidifier in the room. Inside the tank there are "sunny" and "shady" areas. He has a couple of logs to hide under and some greenery. He has a shallow water dish and food dish, and we've been feeding him dandelion leaves, cucumber, orchard grass, and collared greens cut up.

Now on to what we're worried about... The little guy looks like he has the hiccups almost constantly. Not sure if this is what he has, but it's how it looks to us. He keeps moving his head up and down, even when he's asleep. He also has been eating very little that we've noticed, and sleeps nearly all day and night. We've seen him drink water, but we've barely seen him eat. Today we gave him a bath in a warm (not hot) dish. We're concerned about the hiccup-like action that he's doing as well as all of the sleep and very little food that we've seen him eat.

Does this sound abnormal? Does he sound sick? Or are we being the nervous parents here? HELP!

Im not going to start on the tank setup for now. We can cover that later on. The Leopard needs to go to the Vet immediately. It sounds as if he could have a respiratory infection and is having difficulty breathing. Do you have a knowledgeable local reptile Vet? You can try checking your state/area at http://www.herpvetconnection.com. Let us know how that goes.

Thank you!!!

We are taking him to a local recommended vet that specializes in reptiles this morning. Hope the little guy will be ok. The good news is, he is eating this morning at least!

Please let us know how it turns out. Your setup and temps need some major tweaking so we can go into that once you know whats up with him OK?

Yeah you really need to change the setup.

Leo ares very prone to RNS and other respritory infections and it seems 9 times out of 10 its because of the was you are houseing them.Mine got Rns real bad when I got him due to not enough humidity so the humidity door swings both ways with a Leo.

When you get a chance though like JustAnja said you need to fix your setup.

Lisa

We're back from the vet, and he too thinks he has a respiratory infection, but said we caught it at the beginning so he should make a complete recovery. PHEW! While we were there he was able to also do a stool sample and found out that he has some worms, so we're going back in 2 days to get that taken care of. The vet gave our little guy an antibiotic and pumped some fluid into him with vitamins to stimulate his appetite as well as keep him hydrated. When we go back on Wednesday he'll get more antibiotics too. I'm so relieved that we took him to the vet. JustAnja, you're a lifesaver!

Now can I ask what's wrong with his set-up? We described it to the vet and he said what we were doing was right. He gave us a pamplet of information on leopard tortoises and it also said that it recommended our tank set-up for juvenile leopards. We know that when they get older they will need more of an open-air habitat, but from the things we've read, it said a tank was fine for juveniles as long as the humidity is under control. We have a humidity gage in the tank and it's stayed under 50% (usually it's around 30-35%). The temperature has been pretty consistant between 78-85 degrees the past few days.

What are we doing wrong? We only want to do right for our little guy.

I will go into more details when I get back tonight, have to take my son to the Dr. Here is a pic of a Leopard hatchling setup I use. They need more cross-ventilation and more of a temperature thermal gradient than you can achieve in a 10 gal tank or any other glass tank for that matter. They need a warm end and a cooler end so they can decide where they need to be. They need a humid hide area which can be achieved with adding long strand sphagnum moss to their hide spot. Mist it every few days with water to retain humidity.



This setup stayed at 95-105 on the basking/UVB end and 76-78 on the cooler end on the right hand side in the pic.



PS: Vets really dont know whats best when it comes to housing, breeders and keepers do. just because a book says so doesnt mean it is so.

Yes the glass is bad.the ventalation is horrible.Here is my table.It coast $50 to make and it is two storys.my Leo loves it.he takes a strloe everyday up his stairs.Leos can get very board.A 10 gallon tank is way too small for even a hatchling.

No offence to your vet but most vets only have a generilized idea of reptile husbandy they arent too breed specific so to speak.http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o89/dinkanber/Cages/100_0308.jpg[/IMG]
i use a 50/50 mix of play sand and soil.they grass in there is dried burmuda.I was hoping he would munch on it but he realy uses it to hide in.Also when your tort can see out of there tank most go crazsy to try to get out cause they can see out.

Thanks guys! We will be building him an open-air enclosure within the next few days. I've taken a look at the Enclosures forum and that's been a lot of help too in addition to your suggestions!

I have tons of tort table pics that I have collected. I will post links to some later this morning for you.

Thanks for all the help!!! We've just finished building our new enclosure. Our tortoise has been in it for over 24 hours now and she loves it! The enclosure is 4ft x 2ft. The warm section is about 88 degrees and the cooler side is 75 degrees during the day and about 75 degrees throught the enclosure at night. Humidity is consistantly low at around 20-25%. How does this sound? I'll post photos very soon!

Here are some photos of our tortoise and her habitat! Our tortoise is still un-named. We're going to call her a 'she' for now though because the gut instinct that my boyfriend and I first had when we got her was that she was a girl. We'll have a name by tomorrow at the latest!




The light set-up is still in the works. We'll be getting a bigger UVA/UVB light today and we're also going to get some live plants in there.

It looks good. I'd go with shredded aspen as a substrate, instead of newspaper. Leopards love light so I would go with a 4 foot shop light. Go with the 40 watt florscent bulbs and try to get the highest lumen output you can find. I use kitchen and bath ones that put out 3400 lumens each.

Danny

What about the Bed-a-Beast coconut stuff for substrate? Is that good?

AlexAndAimee Wrote:What about the Bed-a-Beast coconut stuff for substrate? Is that good?

Mixed 50/50 with Play Sand, that is an excellent substrate.