Advice...help with new baby Elongated Tortoise

[jgriner0918]

View attachment 73886Hello all,

I just joined this forum because I am a new owner of a baby Elongated tortoise. Her name is Geraldine.

I am concerned because she has been relatively inactive for the past day (I've only had her for 3 days). I don't know if this inactivity is due to stress, the fact that she's a baby, the fact that she's tired, or that I have an inadequate box for her. I was hoping someone could help my understanding.

I have her in a 3ft x 2ft rubbermaid open box. I have a temperature and humidity gauge which is saying 60% humidity and 73 degrees (the gauge is in the cool side of the box). I have a UVB bulb and a heat bulb set up, with a basking temp of around 84 / 85 (should this be warmer?). She does get a good misting every day and we keep her water dish clean throughout the day. She's eaten some, eating a about 2 square inches of collard greens, and a few bites of yellow squash and a few bites of mushrooms.

I have a layer of topsoil on bottom and then a layer of cyprus mulch on top for her substrate. I took out most of the big pieces of mulch. Would the substrate be better if I was to churn up the layers and have a mix of topsoil and cyprus mulch?

She has a hiding area (one of those Coir pots with a 'door' cut out of it). I don't have a heat pad for nighttime, because our house temperature is set at 72. Is that an ok nighttime temp? Should we still get a heating pad?

Any advice would be appreciated. I want to have Geraldine for many years, but am very new at this.

 

[mikeh]

Welcome to the forum. Very nice looking Elongated you have there. Would you post a photo of the entire set up?

One day of inactivity is no reason to be alarmed. Here are few tweaks on the parameters of the set up:
1) This species lives in very humid and moist climate. Aim for RH 85%, above is better. Constant 60% is too low. Misting the enclosure just after lights out at night will help keep the night humidity even higher as there is no basking light to dry things out at night. RH 90+% at night is ideal. You can add some leaf lifter and sphagnum moss, keep it moist to aid humidity. Place some in the hide. The tortoise will appreciate to burrow in it as well. Moist substrate is ok, but the plastron should be able to dry regularly to prevent shell rot. Covering the enclosure at night may help to keep the humidity and partial cover during the day. Closed chamber style would work best. Analog temp and humidity meters are very inaccurate. Digital readers is a must. (Home Depot or Lowe's)

2)Elongated tend to avoid bright direct lights, they have nocturnal tendencies. Low Indirect or very diffused light is recommended. Position the basking light in the corner and a plant right next to it to blocking some light going into the rest of the enclosure.
If you have a coil or screw type compact florescant UVB bulb, remove it. These are known to cause damage to the eyes.
Zoomed 5% T8 long tube is the most ideal UV for Elongated. (T5HO tubes are too bright for this species unless heavily diffused.)

3)Your temperatures are right on the money. You can try raising day time temps a little to see how it effects activity.

4)Don't be afraid to feed some protein. These guys are well known to eat dead animals in the wild. Mushrooms, nightcrawlers, piece of chicken, fish or even high quality canned dog food once a week is great.

Tortoise looks great, good luck!

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi and welcome to the Forum!

This is a link to a general care sheet for the elongated tortoise:

http://www.tortoisetrust.org/care/celongata.html

I don't keep or know about this species, but I would think that 72F degrees is too cool. If it were me, I'd use either a black light at night or a CHE (ceramic heat emitter).

 

[jgriner0918]

Thank you both for your response. I feel a little better about it now. I will try raiaing the temperature and see if that helps. I will also post a photo of the setup later.
Thanks again.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[kimber_lee_314]

My elongateds like it quite warm with low light. I usually don't let my little ones get cooler than 80 (with a CHE) and the humidity is usually in the 90's. They don't like bright lights and will dig deep when the lights are on. What I do is turn the overhead lights on in the room (without turning on the basking lights) and that's enough light for them to come out and eat. Hope that is somewhat helpful to you!