My tortoise tank isnt heating up.

[LemonShell]

I'm getting my tortoise tommarow so I decided to heat up his little home for him tonight. I put on his bulb and left it for an hour. It didn't heat up anything! The warmth only goes off a half an inch from the bulb. it says its a desert terrarium lamp..
I thought desserts were...ya know...warm.

 

[wellington]

I'm not familiar with it. Does it have UVB? You need uvb. Maybe too small of a wattage. Can you try lowering it and maybe put a cover on part of the enclosure. Why not get a MVB for day time and a CHE for night time.

 

[LemonShell]

I'm not familiar with it. Does it have UVB? You need uvb. Maybe too small of a wattage. Can you try lowering it and maybe put a cover on part of the enclosure. Why not get a MVB for day time and a CHE for night time.

Admittingly hearing good advice is soothing. My mother just got through telling me that he should be on newpaper in a smaller tank....which was ridiculous in my opinon.

Anywho. I just checked. It is UVB. And ill try the cover thing now.

 

[jaizei]

What type of lamp is it specifically?

 

[EKLC]

There are three main types of tortoise lamps:

Basking lamps: provides a hot area for the tortoise to bask and warm up under. Temps directly under the lamp should be about 110 F (which is what you the floor temps might be during a warm sunny day). You'd probably want a 50 or 75 W bulb depending on the size of your enclosure.

UVB lamp: flourescent bulb that comes in the long tube and small coil variety. These are just for UVB, which your tortoise needs to produce vitamin D to keep his bones and shell hard. the coil bulbs are typically frowned upon due to their suspect UVB output and possible risk to the tort's eyes

Mercury vapor bulb: produces lots of heat and lots of UVB. These bulbs are expensive and don't come below 100 W, but are great especially if you live somewhere cold and your tort can't go outside for a few months.


You have a UVB bulb, which means you need to get a basking lamp or ditch the UVB and get a MVB

 

[GBtortoises]

I'm getting my tortoise tommarow so I decided to heat up his little home for him tonight. I put on his bulb and left it for an hour. It didn't heat up anything! The warmth only goes off a half an inch from the bulb. it says its a desert terrarium lamp..
I thought desserts were...ya know...warm.

It sounds like you're referring to a flourescent light, either tube or coil type. If it's a coil type, replace it with an tube. Flouresecents produce very little heat, they aren't designed to. You can keep the flourescent lamp and just add a standard (not soft white) incandescent bulb to produce basking heat and additional white light. Using an incandescent for heat and light and a flourescent for UV and light allows for many options as far as temperatures with incandescent wattage used and to create different daylight situations. Both are also much cheaper to replace than an MVB bulb. Both are also much more versatile and better used with a young tortoise than MVB bulbs too. MVB's produce a very localized light along with the heat rather than lighting most of an enclosure. They also require that a tortoise be directly under them in order to benefit from the UV, forcing a tortoise to bask under the hot light, even when it doesn't need to. With a combination of incandescent and flourescent the tortoise can move in and out of the basking area as needed and still be exposed to UV rays and bright daytime light.

 

[Tortus]

I'm weary of the mercury vapor bulbs because of the many reviews I've read about them burning out quickly. And they're expensive. Personally, I wouldn't want to replace a $45 bulb every couple months. I have too many other expenses. I'm getting ready to go with a UVB florescent tube stay with an incandescent bulb for basking heat.