DISCLAIMER:
This is purely an experimental exercise on my part, to investigate some theories of my own regarding thermo-dynamics and its application to tortoise keeping. I've decided to post a thread on it for the benefit of the curious. This is NOT intended as a guide or informational for those getting started in tortoise keeping.
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I've had a few ideas I've wanted to play with bouncing around in my noggin, and decided to do some experiments. As I started these experiments I came to realize that I "skipped-over" some of what we might call "stages" in tortoise keeping. I stood on the shoulders of giants, learned from what they had to say, and built a large, dedicated tortoise enclosure from the start. This kept me from actually experiencing first-hand a few lessons. Now I'm going to hopefully learn some of those lessons as I struggle to investigate some theories.
In other words, I realize what I'm doing here is nothing new to most of you, but I'm hopeful there will be more than meets the eye.
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For my first experiments I've set up two nearly identical enclosures side by side. These are 16 Gallon rubbermaid tubs, which are actually much too small to house tortoises, but hopefully large enough to simulate an actual enclosure.
They have about 2 inches of substrate, composed of half each Cypress Mulch (Zoo Med Brand Forest Floor) and Fir Mulch (Zoo Med Repti-Bark). (This is the used substrate out of the 40 Breeder Adrienne was staying in). I added 6 Cups water to each enclosure and stirred the substrate. This was enough to thorougly wet it, but leave little to any standing water. I then tamped it down flat.
Both tanks also have a little "drinking bowl" of water.
The left tank is obviously largely covered. It has a 50 watt halogen spotlight to create the basking spot and heat the enclosure.
The right tank is open topped. It has a 75 watt halogen spot.
The initial goal at this point is to stabilize both at comparable temperature parameters of 100 Basking and 80 mid enclosure and then check the resulting humidity in all locations after ongoing operation over a few days.
I'm already being surprised though. I can easily hit 110 basking with these setups, (too hot really) but the rest of the enclosure will barely rise above ambient room temperature of 67 or so (too cold). These plastic tubs are very different so far from what I experienced with glass tanks. I hope over time to see better temps, but so far I'm concerned about this style of enclosure (and that had NOT been the point of this experiment).
What I am seeing that I expected, is very low humidity measured at tort level on the basking spots of around 40% at present. With such low ambient temps this is no mystery, but I had honestly expected the covered enclosure to fair better than the open, and so far there is little difference, the open may be even fairing slightly better.
At this point its looking like I will need to up wattage in both enclosures and see how well things improve.
This is purely an experimental exercise on my part, to investigate some theories of my own regarding thermo-dynamics and its application to tortoise keeping. I've decided to post a thread on it for the benefit of the curious. This is NOT intended as a guide or informational for those getting started in tortoise keeping.
---------------------------------------
I've had a few ideas I've wanted to play with bouncing around in my noggin, and decided to do some experiments. As I started these experiments I came to realize that I "skipped-over" some of what we might call "stages" in tortoise keeping. I stood on the shoulders of giants, learned from what they had to say, and built a large, dedicated tortoise enclosure from the start. This kept me from actually experiencing first-hand a few lessons. Now I'm going to hopefully learn some of those lessons as I struggle to investigate some theories.
In other words, I realize what I'm doing here is nothing new to most of you, but I'm hopeful there will be more than meets the eye.
------------------------------------------------------
For my first experiments I've set up two nearly identical enclosures side by side. These are 16 Gallon rubbermaid tubs, which are actually much too small to house tortoises, but hopefully large enough to simulate an actual enclosure.
They have about 2 inches of substrate, composed of half each Cypress Mulch (Zoo Med Brand Forest Floor) and Fir Mulch (Zoo Med Repti-Bark). (This is the used substrate out of the 40 Breeder Adrienne was staying in). I added 6 Cups water to each enclosure and stirred the substrate. This was enough to thorougly wet it, but leave little to any standing water. I then tamped it down flat.
Both tanks also have a little "drinking bowl" of water.
The left tank is obviously largely covered. It has a 50 watt halogen spotlight to create the basking spot and heat the enclosure.
The right tank is open topped. It has a 75 watt halogen spot.
The initial goal at this point is to stabilize both at comparable temperature parameters of 100 Basking and 80 mid enclosure and then check the resulting humidity in all locations after ongoing operation over a few days.
I'm already being surprised though. I can easily hit 110 basking with these setups, (too hot really) but the rest of the enclosure will barely rise above ambient room temperature of 67 or so (too cold). These plastic tubs are very different so far from what I experienced with glass tanks. I hope over time to see better temps, but so far I'm concerned about this style of enclosure (and that had NOT been the point of this experiment).
What I am seeing that I expected, is very low humidity measured at tort level on the basking spots of around 40% at present. With such low ambient temps this is no mystery, but I had honestly expected the covered enclosure to fair better than the open, and so far there is little difference, the open may be even fairing slightly better.
At this point its looking like I will need to up wattage in both enclosures and see how well things improve.