Hi all! We are new owners to a two-year-old Russian tortoise named Shellma that we adore. Time to get a ceramic heat lamp for at night and a back up battery charger. Can someone make recommendations on brand and a link if possible? I have no idea what to look for. Can the ceramic Bulb be used interchangeably with her daytime lamp? We have the zoommed dual lamp. Also I say most of the battery chargers are for under 100 W the lightbulbs in the lamps are 150. So confused! Also need a timer for the lamp.
Need help with ceramic heat lamp & battery
- Thread starter LisaB254
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I don't know what you'd need a battery for, or a back up battery, or a back up battery charger. You won't b able to run heat and light for very long on batteries. Those things need to be plugged in.
The ZooMed dual lamp is not a good way to go, especially if you have a cfl type bulb in there. Those can burn tortoise eyes.
There are four elements to heating and lighting:
tortoiseforum.org
The ZooMed dual lamp is not a good way to go, especially if you have a cfl type bulb in there. Those can burn tortoise eyes.
There are four elements to heating and lighting:
- Basking bulb. I use 65 watt incandescent floods from the hardware store. Some people will need bigger, or smaller wattage bulbs. Let your thermometer be your guide. I run them on a timer for about 12 hours and adjust the height to get the correct basking temp under them. I also like to use a flat rock of some sort directly under the bulb.
- Ambient heat maintenance. I use ceramic heating elements or radiant heat panels set on thermostats to maintain ambient above 80 degrees day and night for tropical species. You'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT.
- Light. I use LEDs for this purpose. Something in the 5000-6500K color range will look the best. Most bulbs at the store are in the 2500K range and they look yellowish. Strip or screw-in bulb types are both fine.
- UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. If you want it anyway, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html
The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise
I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...
tortoiseforum.org
hazelnut_twirl15
Member
Brilliant info above from Tom, helped me massively when buying my lighting stuff for my new Russian baby. Agreed on the battery point, plug in to mains only, batteries won't be consistent in any way
So what do you suggest in the event of a power failure? That’s what I’m concerned about. I live in upstate NY and we’re prone to Winter storms.
A generator than you could have options for humans as well. The battery back ups are only good for about 30 mins at peak and that is with a very small draw, they are more adapted for computers. Solar is awesome, but it is fairly technical to set up safely.
There's a product called Hot Hands. Have several on hand for power outages.
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