Heated water and new bowl for sulcata

[TurkeyPython]

I'm new to the forums, hi~! I'm in rainy Washington state and it's winter, and were in a bit of a predicament involving our six year old female sulcata, piggy. Her water bowl keeps getting too cold in her indoor enclosure, the rest is plenty warm mind you, and we also need a bigger bowl seeing as they don't sell any that she can fit in. She has a homemade jumbo size tort table, it takes up almost the whole living room but we can't just have her ground level because we have dogs who jump and need the storage space underneath. She's only about one foot in shell length but very active. We rescued her from one of those people who never gave their torts any water and only rarely fed them, her growth was stunted and she was poorly bred and didn't even have water for the first month or two of her life! Luckily we got her before she died and she and her sister(R.I.P.) both had shell rot too. Piggy had only the very beginnings and we were able to save her but not her sister. Anyway, back to the current situation! I'm in to sculpting and was thinking I might make her a water dish. I'm thinking I'll get a plexiglass box with one open side and drill a hole or two to feed the wires through and attach the heat pad a thermostat in there and then build the clay bowl around that so that the floor is level with the plexiglass(watertight sealed) and sculpt it so that it has a ramp like the ones on the zoo med(?) repti ramp dishes all the way around it and have it be a round corner bowl with about a two foot radius and about a four inch dish depth filled to two inches to prevent spillage and have a trench in the bottom to feed the cords through into a hole drilled into the side of the table. How does this sound to y'all? Please make suggestions if you think something needs to be adjusted.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi, and welcome to the Forum!

I have my water dishes very close to where the light shines down. Not directly under the light, but close to it (my lights hang straight down and I don't use the clamp feature).

 

[TurkeyPython]

Hi, and welcome to the Forum!

I have my water dishes very close to where the light shines down. Not directly under the light, but close to it (my lights hang straight down and I don't use the clamp feature).

We tried that before but she got angry at us and pushed it to the coldest corner. We tried various other spots but she insisted on that corner and liked it there. She just recently grew out of her bowl too.

 

[Yvonne G]

I have some desert tortoises that I'm having to keep up this winter, and a couple of almost full grown redfooted tortoises. For both of them I'm using really large, probably about 20" diameter, plant saucers. If you buy the plastic ones, they're reasonably priced. You can also buy a rubberized water heater pan for about $10.

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

Hello and welcome to the TFO from AZ

 

[TurkeyPython]

I have some desert tortoises that I'm having to keep up this winter, and a couple of almost full grown redfooted tortoises. For both of them I'm using really large, probably about 20" diameter, plant saucers. If you buy the plastic ones, they're reasonably priced. You can also buy a rubberized water heater pan for about $10.

I've tried looking for similar things to those but couldn't find any and I don't trust delivery services.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Where in the world are you?

Do you have any Walmarts, Home Depot or Lowe's Home Improvement stores near you? What about garden centers? All of these places will carry plant saucers.

If you like to sculpt you can make your own. I wouldn't use the zoo med ramp dish for the example though. They are less than ideal.

I also keep my water source near the lights and they stay toasty warm.

 

[TurkeyPython]

Where in the world are you?

Do you have any Walmarts, Home Depot or Lowe's Home Improvement stores near you? What about garden centers? All of these places will carry plant saucers.

If you like to sculpt you can make your own. I wouldn't use the zoo med ramp dish for the example though. They are less than ideal.

I also keep my water source near the lights and they stay toasty warm.

Lol nearest department store is almost two hours away! Same with Wally World.
What would you suggest as an example of a good ramp?