Feedback wanted - Sulcata Setup

edgrr7

New Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2019
Messages
11
Location (City and/or State)
Grand Rapids Michigan
Hello my name is Edgar,

This is my second post here since my first introduction post back in January. My set up changed a lot since I asked for feedback. 8 months later I am back here again to ask you all to judge my set up. I need constructive feedback as I know I can do things in a better way.


I’m going to start by saying I am from Michigan U.S. where we get all the seasons of the year, my tort Raphael is 14 months old. She is currently housed in my basement under the stairway in a nice cool small “closet” under the stairs. She is in a 40 gallon tub that I got from Tractor Supply. For her substrate I have a mix of 50% zoo med coconut fiber and 50% zoo med repti bark. Raph seems to really like this substrate and burrows herself often. I have a “half tree” hide for her in which I put wet sphagnum moss to keep humid. For lights, during the day I have a powersun 100W UVB lamp and a 125W heat lamp. For the night I have 2 100W Ceramic Heat Emitter. Both the day and night are in the complete opposites of each other (pictured day in the right, night in the left). I have a Zilla power center timer for the lights, which I like because I try to mimic the environment as best as possible by being accurate on the time it shuts off and on. At 10am EST the UVB and Heat Lamp turn on, and turn off at 10:00 p.m. right after this the 2 CHEs turn on for the night time (10:00 pm - 10:00 am) on the opposite side of the tub. For temperatures during the day the warm side is 110F the hottest and 80 on the cool side. At night if I remember correctly the warm side is 90F and cool side is about 65F. I try to soak her at least once a week but I know lately i’ve been bad at this, I do Mist her tub really wet before I feed her. Which is great because I have trained her to know that when it “rains” its food time and she runs to her feeding dish. For food she eats a lot of Romaine lettuce, I know that she needs to eat a better variety but I tried mustard leafs once and she plain out said no. I occasionally coat the romain lettuce with the repti calcium. I sometimes (rarely) give her the Zoo Med grassland tortoise food (see pictures). In her tub I have a 2 water dishes (terra cotta & general water bowl from petstore) I got the terra cotta after reading the dangerous of drowning with the other one, so I just make sure I flush the other water bowl in the ground to prevent any tort tipping. I have a couple rocks, hide, fake plant branches(see pictures). I also have a mini camera where I monitor during the day and night when I am either at work or upstairs and overall she seems like a happy active tort and has definitely grown since I got her at a reptil expo In January . I will provide as much pictures as I can of the set up and things I use. Please let me know what I could be doing different or if you see any errors in my practice. Also let me know if you need any further info from me I tried to provide as much info as possible to get some feedback!

Thank you.
 

Rex1718

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
256
Location (City and/or State)
SC
Personally I believe the enclosure is too small, a 4 x 8 would be a lot better. Read some of Toms threads about closed chambers. I found it really helpful

Also what is the humidity in the enclosure?
I would recommend soaking her everyday.

They can be picky eaters, but the majority of their diet should be grass. I would try to put grass clippings in her food to help transition her. Organic spring mix is ok, wouldn’t feed the spinach a whole lot though.

This is just what I noticed looking at the pictures, in no way am I trying to criticize you, just giving you my honest opinion. There are a lot of helpful threads on here, check them out
Best of luck
 

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