Hows my den looking?

MJ88

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How does my den look for my hermanns? Any tips?
 

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wellington

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What size/age is your tort?
3 and younger needs a closed chamber to hold heat and humidity.
The table looks great but if it's a young tort that needs a closed chamber, figure out a way to attach plastic to make like a tent over it. Easy to do.
 

MJ88

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Jan 9, 2023
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Location (City and/or State)
Falkirk, scotland
What size/age is your tort?
3 and younger needs a closed chamber to hold heat and humidity.
The table looks great but if it's a young tort that needs a closed chamber, figure out a way to attach plastic to make like a tent over it. Easy to do.
Hes 7 months, i use the ceramic heater to help with ambient temps since its open table, plus i give it a spray everyday to keep the humidity up to level
 

wellington

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Hes 7 months, i use the ceramic heater to help with ambient temps since its open table, plus i give it a spray everyday to keep the humidity up to level
Like I said, open top will not hold humidity and a spray a day, really isn't enough humidity. It's much harder keeping the correct temps as heat rises.
A simple plastic cover and about 6 pieces of 2x4's or 2x2's and you have a much better enclosure that will help keep your tortoise smooth and not pyramid.
 

Tom

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How does my den look for my hermanns? Any tips?
It looks great, but I agree with Wellington. There is no way to keep the temps and humidity correct in an open table for a growing baby. Your baby will pyramid in this set up. Spraying the surface does very little because the electric heat dries it up and evaporates it very quickly. That evaporation causes cooling, which either drops the temps, or makes you run hotter bulbs to keep temps up, which evaporate even more moisture.

When your tortoise is an adult and not growing any more, room temperature and lower humidity will probably suit it just fine, but that is not ideal for growing babies.

I'm sorry to be a bummer when you've clearly worked so hard and spent a lot of time and money to make a wonderful enclosure. Unfortunately, there is a lot of bad tortoise advice circulating out in the world, and one of those things is using open tables for babies. We now know that it isn't the way to go, but pet shops and long time tortoise keepers often still don't know this. If your tortoise pyramids and is permanently disfigured because you followed the wrong advice when it was a baby, that will be a heck of a lot more upsetting than having to change the type of enclosure you are using, or just modifying this one to close it in.
 

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