Michaelangelosmom

I am a 69 yr old grandmother of 12, ages 26 through 6 and Greatgrandmother to one very special little boy that is turning 5 soon. I am a retired Pre-K Teacher having put in 35 years teaching such a special age group of children! I then decided I wanted to continue to work and began working in the Emergency Department of Baylor Scott and White in Marble Falls, Texas. I worked in several different areas and decided to now work from home for the hospital with the Call Center. I enjoy helping people! My grandson was given a baby Sulcata a little over a year ago by his mother and Step-father. He was bought at a pet store somewhere in the Dallas area. My grandson was interested in having some turtle's, but they thought the sucata would be better???? Apparently they were given all the wrong advice concerning Sulcatas. He stated to us his Mother thought they were "so cute"!...not thinking down the road! He asked them about the care he should give the sulcata and was told to research it, after all, they said, you are almost 16. They bought a small glass aquarium and put in coconut coir pellets only with a water dish and a small food dish. They bought a medium size hide and a bulb light with cover to sit on top of the aquarium, then said...here you go". They told him to feed him regular lettuce and make sure he had water and have uvb bulb on for 12 hours, anything else just look it up. He had been living with his mom at this time for a year and shortly after getting "Michaelangelo" (he loved the Ninja Turtles growing up) he decided to move back home with hid dad, where he had always been.
He took as good care of him as he knew how to at the time. He did find a video from Kamp Kenan that he watched and tried his best. I started helping him research and when he was required to go to his mother's this past March for spring break and asked me to keep Michaelangelo I jumped into action. It was hard to believe he was still as healthy as he was at the time. I started out with a 24" plastic tub at the time with putting in substrate that I could find that I thought would be correct (I had not found this forum yet) and fed him with dandelion weeds, clover and grasses that I cut up small. I bought a small basking light that hung over a piece of slate and sprayed his home every day. I would take him outside in his habitat with a screen cover and have tried since then to get him as much outside time as possible. He seems to be doing well. I most likely fed him too much in the beginning, as he did grow pretty quickly. He is not completely smooth, but I have learned quite a bit from this forum and especially Tom. I am about to move him into a larger habitat this weekend. I will be using the basking flood light Tom recommended along with florescent or LED's for light. Now, my question is, since he gets about 3 hours at least a week of outside sunlight, will I need to still provide a uvb/uva tube and for how long. I know this has been a very long post and I apologize. Just wanted his back story told. We, especially me, have completely fallen in love with him and want the best for him. We live in the small town of Llano, Texas in Central Texas. Looks like our winter is going to be mild. Thank you for hearing me out.