New African Sulcata 2 years old

[MandyV]

Yay that’s brilliant! Would love to see some pics? How are your ground temps reading atm?🙂you had a play around with the govees yet?
Yeah as Alex explained it’s kind of an old way of doing things having uv on the same amount of time your basking bulb is on, no tortoise is blasted with 12 hours of uv in the wild, therefore it’s not necessary in captivity, I suggested around noon as most folks do, but you can monitor your tort’s behaviour to gauge when the best time is for it to be on, if it makes you more comfortable you can do a bit longer than 4, but tbh I’d save your bulb, 4 should be fine😊

Pictures coming soon I have to fix the arrangement like you recommended. I have the grooves in one on each side temps are not good. By basking 74 and 55 on the other end 72 and 59

 

[MandyV]

Pictures coming soon I have to fix the arrangement like you recommended. I have the grooves in one on each side temps are not good. By basking 74 and 55 on the other end 72 and 59

For the temp gun do I put the gun itself under the lamp or the red light probably a stupid question I know

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Pictures coming soon I have to fix the arrangement like you recommended. I have the grooves in one on each side temps are not good. By basking 74 and 55 on the other end 72 and 59

Cool no worries😊so directly under the basking bulb is currently 74? It was reading 84 under there yesterday wasn’t it or? And your cooler end is 55? Where’s the 72 and 59 readings coming from?
Don’t worry too much just yet about the overall ambient being too low, once you install a CHE or two, the problem will be solved, let’s try and get that basking area right though, if I could get a pic of how high it’s hung we’ll get a better idea on if you should lower it or potentially try a higher watt, 75 should be able to create a 95 spot underneath though

For the temp gun do I put the gun itself under the lamp or the red light probably a stupid question I know

not stupid at all, it’s the red light you want under the lamp or wherever it is you’re measuring👍

 

[MandyV]

Ok this is just temporary to get the lights in for now I plan on fixing this better so please no judgement lol. I have 2 grooves those were temp and humidity if I’m not mistaken each

 

[MandyV]

The grooves

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Ok this is just temporary to get the lights in for now I plan on fixing this better so please no judgement lol. I have 2 grooves those were temp and humidity if I’m not mistaken each

Basking light does look quite low, and obviously you won’t want it too close to the tortoises shell, I’d say try those others you got but they’re also 75, 75 tends to do the job for most people but I’m wondering if it’s going to be worth putting a 100 in and raising it to a safer level, that will still hopefully achieve the desired 95 spot underneath, let me tag @Alex and the Redfoot or @Tom here, hopefully they can help us, yep the govees are your temp and humidity

The grooves

so apart from the temps which we’re addressing, humidity is looking quite low, but I will say substrate does look kind of dry in the pics, let’s not worry about humidity yet though, temps first, once they’re correct humidity will be easier to fix, just check your under layer is still nice and damp?

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Honestly though for what it’s worth, the parts of the set up I can see look great! It’s going ti work a charm once we work out the tweaks, every new set up takes lots of adjusting like this, it’s very lucky and rare to get all the temps etc spot on first go so don’t worry just yet, we’ll get it sorted😊

 

[MandyV]

When I use the temp run it’s 111 so idk ugh

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

When I use the temp run it’s 111 so idk ugh

Oh wow, that’s the temp gun reading on that slate? Honestly that’s encouraging Mandy! We’re closer than we thought! If that slate is 111f, you’re actually going to want to raise that basking bulb up a bit now, that is too high a reading for directly underneath👍

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Looking at the govees, I’m thinking they’re potentially a bit too high up which could be why you’re getting those temp readings, unless you’d say they’re at tortoise level? You want them as close to tortoise height as possible to get more accurate readings of your ground temps, it’s also ideal to have them hang away from the wall really, but I understand that might be tricking with this, I’m having a little brainstorm to think how you can mount them in the perfect position.. bare with lol

 

[MandyV]

Ok I’ll try that

 

[MandyV]

Ok so just looking at light placement do I have this right?

 

[Megatron's Mom]

Put the Govees on the ground. I don't worry about the tortoises knocking them over. I just set them back up. Once you get them on the floor let the govees bake about an hour and then check them again.
Is your UVB light near that heat lamp? You will want that to be 18 inches above the tortoise shell.

If the slate is reading 111F then you can go up a little with the light.

Since you don't have the Che in there yet that will help the overall temps too.

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Ok so just looking at light placement do I have this right?

Could we get a pic of the overall set up?

Put the Govees on the ground. I don't worry about the tortoises knocking them over. I just set them back up. Once you get them on the floor let the govees bake about an hour and then check them again.
Is your UVB light near that heat lamp? You will want that to be 18 inches above the tortoise shell.

If the slate is reading 111F then you can go up a little with the light.

Since you don't have the Che in there yet that will help the overall temps too.

Didn’t think to suggest putting them on the ground, good shout! Ours are different you see, we have probes. Will the tortoise not potentially drag the govees out of place? Either way for now it’ll help give us a better idea of the ground temps👍
And yeah as long as the uvb is in the basking end near the bulb, that’s all good, as megatrons mom says, around 18inches from the top of the tortoise shell, so raise a few more inches if you need, don’t want tortoises shell too close to it🙂

The che is going to help the overall ambient temp too so don’t worry if that cool end is too cool right now. The finale test will be if just one ceramic can keep the whole enclosure above 80 overnight when the basking is off, you can test this by putting the ceramic in for a few hours in the middle, with the thermostat probe in the corner of the cooler end, set the thermostat for around 82, then wait n see, do temp gun checks and look at your monitors, if it’s not keeping warm enough, another ceramic will need installing, but one step at a time, you’ve got the week to run tests and get the temperature and humidity right😁