A while ago — yikes, it will be exactly a year ago tomorrow; how??? — I asked for advice on how to set up an L-shaped indoor enclosure for my (now almost-8-year-old) Russian tortoise. I live in a 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco technically with a yard but we aren't allowed to use it, so no outdoor housing options for our little dude, and I had him in a 4'L x 2'W x 1.5'H melamine Animal Plastics enclosure since we adopted him in 2018. (I included a photo of this smaller older enclosure for comparison.)
I have now finally mostly finished building and sealing and filling his new home based on some of the advice I received. Thank you very much to the folks who gave me feedback on what I was thinking at the time and for your recommendations for how to make things better. Sorry it took me a year to reply, and actually almost 2 years since buying the modular enclosure, but we are finally there. He is in it now. He seems happy. It's not yet got the thermostat controller device and heat probes connected, but I've got two TempPro/ThermPro hygrometer-thermometer readers affixed with magnets at either end until I connect everything to the thermostat controller over the weekend.
The enclosure is two 4x2x2 feet enclosures connected to a 2x2x2 feet connector box, made of very thin pvc. And there are currently 5 hides set up around the space for him. One side of the enclosure is like a million gallons of coco coir pith, mixed with repti-zoo bark, and the other side is orchid bark chips, the finest size i could find.
I ended up using 2 LEDs, 1 UVB, 1 basking flood light bulb, and 1 radiant heat panel. The warm side seems to be getting around 95 right near the basking flood light. The cool side was 77 last i checked. The cool side has the orchid bark chips and was much more humid than the warm side, but I'll moisten substrate as needed, and try to get everything just right.
But I think it was worth all the money and time and effort because already I can see Shelly going from one hide to another throughout the day, and napping and sunning.
I also was trying to grow weeds, like Cheeseweed and Bristlemallow and Ribwort Plantain, in the enclosure in grow trays at one point, but they kept dying on me or getting moldy. I've got a few new ones I'm trying out in his old cage. If it works, I'll have a regular home supply of Common Sowthistle, Chamomile, and Buck's Horn Plantain.
If you have advice for me now that things are done but probably modifiable, let me know.
If you want to check out where I got the enclosure, it's two "Nova" models and whatever the cube connector is called, at https://apexreptile.com/. Ummmm what else... if you like the backgrounds, I just got the images from Adobe Stock photos online (think I had to pay a negligible fee to download the largest size) and then asked the folks at Toad Ranch Cages to make the custom images into adhesive backgrounds for me; that part was kind of pricey but looks so cool it was worth it in my opinion. https://toadranchcages.com/collections/destinations-reptile-enclosure-backgrounds
I have now finally mostly finished building and sealing and filling his new home based on some of the advice I received. Thank you very much to the folks who gave me feedback on what I was thinking at the time and for your recommendations for how to make things better. Sorry it took me a year to reply, and actually almost 2 years since buying the modular enclosure, but we are finally there. He is in it now. He seems happy. It's not yet got the thermostat controller device and heat probes connected, but I've got two TempPro/ThermPro hygrometer-thermometer readers affixed with magnets at either end until I connect everything to the thermostat controller over the weekend.
The enclosure is two 4x2x2 feet enclosures connected to a 2x2x2 feet connector box, made of very thin pvc. And there are currently 5 hides set up around the space for him. One side of the enclosure is like a million gallons of coco coir pith, mixed with repti-zoo bark, and the other side is orchid bark chips, the finest size i could find.
I ended up using 2 LEDs, 1 UVB, 1 basking flood light bulb, and 1 radiant heat panel. The warm side seems to be getting around 95 right near the basking flood light. The cool side was 77 last i checked. The cool side has the orchid bark chips and was much more humid than the warm side, but I'll moisten substrate as needed, and try to get everything just right.
But I think it was worth all the money and time and effort because already I can see Shelly going from one hide to another throughout the day, and napping and sunning.
I also was trying to grow weeds, like Cheeseweed and Bristlemallow and Ribwort Plantain, in the enclosure in grow trays at one point, but they kept dying on me or getting moldy. I've got a few new ones I'm trying out in his old cage. If it works, I'll have a regular home supply of Common Sowthistle, Chamomile, and Buck's Horn Plantain.
If you have advice for me now that things are done but probably modifiable, let me know.
If you want to check out where I got the enclosure, it's two "Nova" models and whatever the cube connector is called, at https://apexreptile.com/. Ummmm what else... if you like the backgrounds, I just got the images from Adobe Stock photos online (think I had to pay a negligible fee to download the largest size) and then asked the folks at Toad Ranch Cages to make the custom images into adhesive backgrounds for me; that part was kind of pricey but looks so cool it was worth it in my opinion. https://toadranchcages.com/collections/destinations-reptile-enclosure-backgrounds
