Checking in

[fluffybubble66]

Just checking in....I changed my bulb as requested to a dome. Just wanted to check of there's anything I should add or take out of my indoor set up.

Here's some pics of feeding, basking, bedding and water areas. I feed on a terracotta platform but also scattered. I have a shallow bathing dish with lowered sides and a,separate drinking dish. There's a wooden hide with deep choir at the cooler end. A baskingbplatform under the caged domed lamp and a separate uv strip that's on 12 is hours a day. Heat lamp on thermo set to 28 to 30 day and low 2to mud 20s night and a humidity modify that reads between 60 and 75%. I feed leafy green veg most of which I grow at home plus dandelion, bine weed,bramble and occasional Cucumber sprinkled with nutrobol. There's also a tortoise bit block and cuttlefish but never seen Tom eat those yet.

Anything else I need don't need should change please?



Thank you

 

[Tom]

That is not a dome lamp. There is no dome. This is a dome:

Your basking lamp should not be on a thermostat. You don't want the "sun" turning on and off all day. It should be on a timer. Adjust the fixture up or down to get the correct basking temperature under it. Alternatively, you can run it through rheostat, aka: lamp dimmer, to get the correct temperature under it.

Also, that bulb cage is to keep snakes and climbing lizards from burning themselves on the heat lamp. You don't need the cage for a tortoise. I would remove it.

It also looks like your bulb is a spot type. You need a flood type. Spot bulbs will cause excessive pyramiding.
Your UV strip should only be on for a few hours mid day. Strong UV all day from sun up to sun down is highly unnatural and wholly unnecessary. An added benefit to only running it a couple/few hours mid day is that your expensive UV tube will last for years instead of months.

I don't see any ambient lighting. There needs to be bright light on for 12 hours a day.

Ambient heat set on a thermostat? Is your house always above the lowest temperature that you ever want the enclosure to drop down to?

Here is a breakdown of the four heating and lighting essentials:

1. Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your guide. I run them on a timer for about 12 hours and adjust the height to get the correct basking temp under them. I also like to use a flat rock of some sort directly under the bulb. You need to check the temp with a thermometer directly under the bulb and get it to around 95-100F (36-37C).
2. Ambient heat maintenance. I use ceramic heating elements or radiant heat panels set on thermostats to maintain ambient above 80 degrees day and night for tropical species. In most cases you'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT, as long as your house stays above 60F (15-16C) at night. Some people in colder climates or with larger enclosures will need multiple CHEs or RHPs to spread out enough heat.
3. Ambient light. I use LEDs for this purpose. Something in the 5000-6500K color range will look the best. Most bulbs at the store are in the 2500K range and they look yellowish. Strip or screw-in LED bulb types are both fine.
4. UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. In colder climates, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. I like the 12% HO bulbs from Arcadia. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html A good UV bulb only needs to run for 2-3 hours mid day. You need the basking bulb and the ambient lighting to be on at least 12 hours a day.

I would dampen and hand pack the coir down. Its too messy when its all fluffy like that, and it will be too dusty when it dries out. Keep it slightly damp all the time. Not wet and soppy. Just lightly damp.

Much more here, and a temperate species care sheet that covers all of this too:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[fluffybubble66]

That is not a dome lamp. There is no dome. This is a dome:
View attachment 360930
Your basking lamp should not be on a thermostat. You don't want the "sun" turning on and off all day. It should be on a timer. Adjust the fixture up or down to get the correct basking temperature under it. Alternatively, you can run it through rheostat, aka: lamp dimmer, to get the correct temperature under it.

Also, that bulb cage is to keep snakes and climbing lizards from burning themselves on the heat lamp. You don't need the cage for a tortoise. I would remove it.

It also looks like your bulb is a spot type. You need a flood type. Spot bulbs will cause excessive pyramiding.
Your UV strip should only be on for a few hours mid day. Strong UV all day from sun up to sun down is highly unnatural and wholly unnecessary. An added benefit to only running it a couple/few hours mid day is that your expensive UV tube will last for years instead of months.

I don't see any ambient lighting. There needs to be bright light on for 12 hours a day.

Ambient heat set on a thermostat? Is your house always above the lowest temperature that you ever want the enclosure to drop down to?

Here is a breakdown of the four heating and lighting essentials:

1. Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your guide. I run them on a timer for about 12 hours and adjust the height to get the correct basking temp under them. I also like to use a flat rock of some sort directly under the bulb. You need to check the temp with a thermometer directly under the bulb and get it to around 95-100F (36-37C).
2. Ambient heat maintenance. I use ceramic heating elements or radiant heat panels set on thermostats to maintain ambient above 80 degrees day and night for tropical species. In most cases you'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT, as long as your house stays above 60F (15-16C) at night. Some people in colder climates or with larger enclosures will need multiple CHEs or RHPs to spread out enough heat.
3. Ambient light. I use LEDs for this purpose. Something in the 5000-6500K color range will look the best. Most bulbs at the store are in the 2500K range and they look yellowish. Strip or screw-in LED bulb types are both fine.
4. UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. In colder climates, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. I like the 12% HO bulbs from Arcadia. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html A good UV bulb only needs to run for 2-3 hours mid day. You need the basking bulb and the ambient lighting to be on at least 12 hours a day.

I would dampen and hand pack the coir down. Its too messy when its all fluffy like that, and it will be too dusty when it dries out. Keep it slightly damp all the time. Not wet and soppy. Just lightly damp.

Much more here, and a temperate species care sheet that covers all of this too:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

Thank you. I'll work my way through all of that. It is a flood bulb but yes it dims on a thermostat, it is on all the time just varying degrees of light. The 7v bulb is years old, has heat reflector strips but is on 12 hours because that's the advice I git previously in this forum. I'm in the UK do it's very rarely above 20 naturally in the house. In the summer Tom has the run of the sun room or if we are in the garden he has a raised veg plot to mooch about in. The choir is damp but I can squash down. It was too wet do I added some more dry to soaknup the moisture. I'll take off the grate and get a dome, sorry stupid me thought that meant a curved bulb and I changed it from spot to flood following a previous recommendation. Not sure I understand the ambient light thing? Surely naturally they just have the one source of heat and light whoch is the sun so uv and heat bulbs I thought replaced that?
Even in this group I'm finding so many conflicting bits of advice that I must admit, it's a little difficult to keep track but I'm trying because I want Tom to have a good life and he came from a dodgy start with dome weird scute lifting, not ouramufimg I don't think, maybe damage, not sure but I font think its getting g worse although hasn't improved. Did post about that on here but hot very little advice or tonight's on that so I'm drill not sure?

Thank you again for taking time to help me, much appreciated

 

[fluffybubble66]

Excuse thectypos, I'm on my phone travelling home from work

 

[fluffybubble66]

Some more pics of the lights. I got the arcadia ones recommended in this forum. Was that previous advice not right?

 

[Tom]

Thank you. I'll work my way through all of that. It is a flood bulb but yes it dims on a thermostat, it is on all the time just varying degrees of light. The 7v bulb is years old, has heat reflector strips but is on 12 hours because that's the advice I git previously in this forum. I'm in the UK do it's very rarely above 20 naturally in the house. In the summer Tom has the run of the sun room or if we are in the garden he has a raised veg plot to mooch about in. The choir is damp but I can squash down. It was too wet do I added some more dry to soaknup the moisture. I'll take off the grate and get a dome, sorry stupid me thought that meant a curved bulb and I changed it from spot to flood following a previous recommendation. Not sure I understand the ambient light thing? Surely naturally they just have the one source of heat and light whoch is the sun so uv and heat bulbs I thought replaced that?
Even in this group I'm finding so many conflicting bits of advice that I must admit, it's a little difficult to keep track but I'm trying because I want Tom to have a good life and he came from a dodgy start with dome weird scute lifting, not ouramufimg I don't think, maybe damage, not sure but I font think its getting g worse although hasn't improved. Did post about that on here but hot very little advice or tonight's on that so I'm drill not sure?

Thank you again for taking time to help me, much appreciated

The Arcadia UV bulb is the best. Also good on the flood bulb.

Since the UV tube should only be on a few hours a day at most, you need bright ambient lighting to make it look like day time. The 50watt flood and the UV tube are relatively dim when compared to the sun. The 50 watt by itself produces a very "yellowish" light which is more like sunset or sunrise. You don't want only that bulb all day and night, and you don't want that bulb dimming all day long.

An ambient temperature of 20-21 day and night is fine, as long as he can warm up during the day and bask. The basking area directly under the bulb needs to get up to around 36-37C. 28-30C is much too cool, and your tortoise can't properly warm up if the bulb keeps dimming every time it starts to get warm in there.

I understand the conflicting advice can get frustrating. Please ask for more explanation when that happens. We are happy to explain so that you understand what you are trying to accomplish, why, and how best to do it.

 

[fluffybubble66]

The Arcadia UV bulb is the best. Also good on the flood bulb.

Since the UV tube should only be on a few hours a day at most, you need bright ambient lighting to make it look like day time. The 50watt flood and the UV tube are relatively dim when compared to the sun. The 50 watt by itself produces a very "yellowish" light which is more like sunset or sunrise. You don't want only that bulb all day and night, and you don't want that bulb dimming all day long.

An ambient temperature of 20-21 day and night is fine, as long as he can warm up during the day and bask. The basking area directly under the bulb needs to get up to around 36-37C. 28-30C is much too cool, and your tortoise can't properly warm up if the bulb keeps dimming every time it starts to get warm in there.

I understand the conflicting advice can get frustrating. Please ask for more explanation when that happens. We are happy to explain so that you understand what you are trying to accomplish, why, and how best to do it.

Thanks Tom
That makes sense. Do my bulbs are ok bar rhe cage and u only need my uv on a few hours a day. I also need to ramp up my thermostat on my basking bulb to 37 which I can do. The tank is in front of a window and it's class fronted so there is natural light in there. Will that suffice?

Would those issues explain the strange scute lifting I was seeing? Have attached the pics again as I did post here before bit didn't get any advice on what it might be

 

[Tom]

Thanks Tom
That makes sense. Do my bulbs are ok bar rhe cage and u only need my uv on a few hours a day. I also need to ramp up my thermostat on my basking bulb to 37 which I can do. The tank is in front of a window and it's class fronted so there is natural light in there. Will that suffice?

Would those issues explain the strange scute lifting I was seeing? Have attached the pics again as I did post here before bit didn't get any advice on what it might be

I don't see any scutes lifting off, so I think you are referring to the pyramiding. Pyramiding is caused by growth in conditions that are too dry. You can't undo what is already done, but with more humidity and moisture and soaks, you can get the new growth to come in smoother.

Natural light from a window is excellent, but what about morning or evening? What about when the days get shorter and you are not ready for the tortoise to brumate yet? It is best to have your own bright LED light in an indoor set up so that you can control the duration and intensity as needed.