New tortoise owner need help

[Iruhaku]

I bought a Sulcata tortoise yesterday called Tiny. I’m looking.for any advice. I used the included substrate within the kit (coco husk) but have been advised to use fine coir. I bought bricks, emptied out the vivarium and prepared it with 3.5 litres of water per brick. It’s now around 4-5 inches deep packed by hand. I have an Arcadia 50w basking bulb, 50w ceramic heater bulb and 24w 12% desert tube bulb. Humidity on the cold end is now 70% and hot end is at 45-50%. I am trying to get these to around 80% and 65-70% respectively. Any ideas on how to increase slightly? I know I’ve just changed it so maybe it will take a little while to increase to the desired level but if anyone has advice it would be appreciated.

Besides this I have questions regarding heating and lighting.

the vivarium (pictured) is now staring to have a small amount of condensation particularly on the cold end. Is this normal and ok? Also when I turn off the basking lamp and UVB lamp the temperature starts to decrease slowly. The tortoise group on Facebook said I should try to keep it at all times above 27C. I have the temperature set at 32C and I just cornered it I should buy the bigger 100w ceramic heater instead?

Any help and advice greatly received.

Thanks

 

[TammyJ]

Hi and welcome to the forum.
@wellington @Tom

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Hello! First up I want to commend you for getting a good baby set up together! So many people try to start with open tops, this is perfect!
I’ll be honest, Facebook groups can contain a whole lot of outdated information, so do be wary, they aren’t wrong about temperature here, but there’s so many different care aspects groups on fb get wrong, this place truly has the best most up to date stuff

Now in terms of humidity, I can’t help but notice you’re using analog disks, do you have a digital one in there too? The analog ones can be a bit inaccurate, yours are a bit high up too, you’ll want them more at tortoise level, your humidity is possibly better than you think, condensation on the glass is a good sign! Have you got all the vents tapped up? Don’t worry about lack of air flow! You’re creating more than enough exchange when opening it to do daily husbandries. Humidity will naturally be a bit lower on the warmer side, but hopefully you’ll start achieving 80’s elsewhere in the enclosure, it’ll be no problem with this kind of set up, just some trial and error if it’s new to you, humidity will rise at night too.

I’m thinking a 50w ceramic is probably not enough to keep the entire enclosure around 27c(80f) at night, you don’t want it dropping below that anywhere day or night, you could try a 100w ceramic, if you go that route, move it towards the middle for a more even heat distribution and place the thermostat probe in one of the corners, or, you could mount a second 50w ceramic the other end and place the probe in the middleif sticking with one CHE definitely move it to the middle.

Another friendly suggestion, I’d remove that water dish and replace it with a clay terracotta saucer, those pet store dishes lack traction and can be a bit of a hazard, especially for a tiny baby, a saucer sitting flush with your substrate is much easier and more appealing for baby to navigate

If you don’t have digital monitoring I’d definitely get some as soon as you can, to get a more accurate reading on your temperatures and humidity, temp being most important. Temperature guns are really handy too!

I noticed you say you turn off your basking and uv, I’d definitely suggest getting all your lighting hooked up to wall timers, not only is it handy for you, it really helps get your baby into a set routine, they’re very routine oriented creatures. with the uv timing, every other source of information will tell you 12hours of uv. This is essentially an old fashioned rule that has stuck with a lot of keepers, it stems from the presumption that once the basking light or ambient lighting is on, ie the ‘sun’, that uv must coexist the same amount of hours. Fact is, uv rays only peak for a few hours a day, anyone with a uv meter will confirm this. No tortoise is blasted with 12 hours of uv in the wild, therefore it’s not necessary in captivity. Whilst not necessarily dangerous, it’s potentially annoying to the tortoise to have 12hours on uv in the enclosure.
The right uv bulbs are much more expensive to replace once their uv strength diminishes, so it’s definitely best having it on a 4 hour timer that provides them with all the uv they need, saving your bulb life.
Then some cheaper led lighting for your ambient 12 hour light cycle as well as the basking light on the same 12hrs, your ceramic(s) will run 24/7 on a thermostat, hope that all makes sense

Feel free to check this link out to double check correct temps n everything, I mention a bit about humidity maintenance too

Leopard/sulcata starter

Hello there! In this thread I’m going to include some information below on how I’d personally tackle an indoor starter set up for a leopard/sulcata until they’re bigger. Hopefully it helps give people some ideas!” I know it looks like a lot to go over, I like to make sure all bases are covered...

tortoiseforum.org

This one is really handy to have a quick look through as well so you can rest assured you’re avoiding the all too common misinformation out there

Common keeping errors

Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...

tortoiseforum.org

Hope this helps!

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Iruhaku]

Hello! First up I want to commend you for getting a good baby set up together! So many people try to start with open tops, this is perfect!
I’ll be honest, Facebook groups can contain a whole lot of outdated information, so do be wary, they aren’t wrong about temperature here, but there’s so many different care aspects groups on fb get wrong, this place truly has the best most up to date stuff

Now in terms of humidity, I can’t help but notice you’re using analog disks, do you have a digital one in there too? The analog ones can be a bit inaccurate, yours are a bit high up too, you’ll want them more at tortoise level, your humidity is possibly better than you think, condensation on the glass is a good sign! Have you got all the vents tapped up? Don’t worry about lack of air flow! You’re creating more than enough exchange when opening it to do daily husbandries. Humidity will naturally be a bit lower on the warmer side, but hopefully you’ll start achieving 80’s elsewhere in the enclosure, it’ll be no problem with this kind of set up, just some trial and error if it’s new to you, humidity will rise at night too.

I’m thinking a 50w ceramic is probably not enough to keep the entire enclosure around 27c(80f) at night, you don’t want it dropping below that anywhere day or night, you could try a 100w ceramic, if you go that route, move it towards the middle for a more even heat distribution and place the thermostat probe in one of the corners, or, you could mount a second 50w ceramic the other end and place the probe in the middleif sticking with one CHE definitely move it to the middle.

Another friendly suggestion, I’d remove that water dish and replace it with a clay terracotta saucer, those pet store dishes lack traction and can be a bit of a hazard, especially for a tiny baby, a saucer sitting flush with your substrate is much easier and more appealing for baby to navigate

If you don’t have digital monitoring I’d definitely get some as soon as you can, to get a more accurate reading on your temperatures and humidity, temp being most important. Temperature guns are really handy too!

I noticed you say you turn off your basking and uv, I’d definitely suggest getting all your lighting hooked up to wall timers, not only is it handy for you, it really helps get your baby into a set routine, they’re very routine oriented creatures. with the uv timing, every other source of information will tell you 12hours of uv. This is essentially an old fashioned rule that has stuck with a lot of keepers, it stems from the presumption that once the basking light or ambient lighting is on, ie the ‘sun’, that uv must coexist the same amount of hours. Fact is, uv rays only peak for a few hours a day, anyone with a uv meter will confirm this. No tortoise is blasted with 12 hours of uv in the wild, therefore it’s not necessary in captivity. Whilst not necessarily dangerous, it’s potentially annoying to the tortoise to have 12hours on uv in the enclosure.
The right uv bulbs are much more expensive to replace once their uv strength diminishes, so it’s definitely best having it on a 4 hour timer that provides them with all the uv they need, saving your bulb life.
Then some cheaper led lighting for your ambient 12 hour light cycle as well as the basking light on the same 12hrs, your ceramic(s) will run 24/7 on a thermostat, hope that all makes sense

Feel free to check this link out to double check correct temps n everything, I mention a bit about humidity maintenance too

Leopard/sulcata starter

Hello there! In this thread I’m going to include some information below on how I’d personally tackle an indoor starter set up for a leopard/sulcata until they’re bigger. Hopefully it helps give people some ideas!” I know it looks like a lot to go over, I like to make sure all bases are covered...

tortoiseforum.org

This one is really handy to have a quick look through as well so you can rest assured you’re avoiding the all too common misinformation out there

Common keeping errors

Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...

tortoiseforum.org

Hope this helps!

Hey, I’ve read through your posts and recommendations and implemented some changes based off of them. Looking for yours thoughts . I have swapped the basking lamp with the CHE lamp so now the CHE is much closer to the middle and the basking is now closer to the side. I have a digital hygrometer ordered and I already had one that i forgot about (thermopro) so I’ve used that to measure both sides night and now day temps and humidity. Humidity on the cold side is around 83-85% with daytime temperatures of 29-30C and nighttime temps of 28-29C and humidity on the hot side is around 80-82% with temp of 32-33C with the basking spot around 35-.35.5C with humidity of 70%,

Sorry I meant to clarify that when they switch off it is automatic. I have smart plugs, they were both on the same plug and set to come on at 7AM and off at 8PM but now the basking is 7AM-8PM and UVB is 11:30AM-4PM.

I am just going to pick up a 2FT LED strip light that I will put on the back and time it to come on as the UVB light switches off then switch off when the basking lamp switches off. Is there any particular kind? Or it won’t matter?

I’m fairly happpy now that my little friend has the best chances.

Is there any preferred food I should be giving him? I am looking for some fresh grass but it is a struggle,

Thanks so much from myself and tiny

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Hey, I’ve read through your posts and recommendations and implemented some changes based off of them. Looking for yours thoughts . I have swapped the basking lamp with the CHE lamp so now the CHE is much closer to the middle and the basking is now closer to the side. I have a digital hygrometer ordered and I already had one that i forgot about (thermopro) so I’ve used that to measure both sides night and now day temps and humidity. Humidity on the cold side is around 83-85% with daytime temperatures of 29-30C and nighttime temps of 28-29C and humidity on the hot side is around 80-82% with temp of 32-33C with the basking spot around 35-.35.5C with humidity of 70%,

Sorry I meant to clarify that when they switch off it is automatic. I have smart plugs, they were both on the same plug and set to come on at 7AM and off at 8PM but now the basking is 7AM-8PM and UVB is 11:30AM-4PM.

I am just going to pick up a 2FT LED strip light that I will put on the back and time it to come on as the UVB light switches off then switch off when the basking lamp switches off. Is there any particular kind? Or it won’t matter?

I’m fairly happpy now that my little friend has the best chances.

Is there any preferred food I should be giving him? I am looking for some fresh grass but it is a struggle,

Thanks so much from myself and tiny

Fab! I think the only thing is they do look quite close together still, ideally you want a ceramic further from you basking bulb to reap the benefit, but all your temperatures sound fine so least that’s worked outhumidity sounds pretty spot on too

Ah perfect no worries, with the ambient light you can put that on the same timer as the basking bulb, ambient lighting can be on all dayplace that as close to the middle as you can. Stick with colour ranges 5500-6500k and you’re golden, it can be a regular screw in led or strip lighting, we personally use the white python brand, bit more expensive but we really like the design.

In terms of food, fresh greens, safe weeds&herbs are your way to go, have you checked out the tortoise table? It’s so handy! In the wildflower section there’s lots of weeds that grow really well in the uk, you can buy seeds online to grow your ownthey don’t technically need introducing to hay and grasses till they’re a bit older, but if you’re wanting to get him used to the texture from an early age, you might like this stuff, it’s perfect for upping variety too! You soak each cube in a bit of water(quantities on packet) and it turns into a mushy grassy texture, you can add a bit on top of the fresh food, he might take time to get used to it so just add a little bit at a time and go at his pace

No problem at all

 

[Iruhaku]

Fab! I think the only thing is they do look quite close together still, ideally you want a ceramic further from you basking bulb to reap the benefit, but all your temperatures sound fine so least that’s worked outhumidity sounds pretty spot on too

Ah perfect no worries, with the ambient light you can put that on the same timer as the basking bulb, ambient lighting can be on all dayplace that as close to the middle as you can. Stick with colour ranges 5500-6500k and you’re golden, it can be a regular screw in led or strip lighting, we personally use the white python brand, bit more expensive but we really like the design.

In terms of food, fresh greens, safe weeds&herbs are your way to go, have you checked out the tortoise table? It’s so handy! In the wildflower section there’s lots of weeds that grow really well in the uk, you can buy seeds online to grow your ownthey don’t technically need introducing to hay and grasses till they’re a bit older, but if you’re wanting to get him used to the texture from an early age, you might like this stuff, it’s perfect for upping variety too! You soak each cube in a bit of water(quantities on packet) and it turns into a mushy grassy texture, you can add a bit on top of the fresh food, he might take time to get used to it so just add a little bit at a time and go at his pace

No problem at all

I ordered white python 3ft daylight LED strips from swell which should come tomorrow (express). So while the mrs gives him his bath tomorrow I’ll be moving the CHE 4-5 inches towards the centre which will be just off centre then favouring the hot side slightly. I’ve changed the CHE to a 100w variant but I am in Scotland so I await the winter to see if the temperatures are maintained if not I’ll upgrade to the 150w, I would’ve done now but I was desperate and didn’t want the little guy cold at all so went to petsathome but they only had the 100W.

I’ve looked through the weeds and greens on the tortoise tables. I am going picking later today .

I do have Arcadia optimised 52 freshly pressed tortoise food which i add water and then serve along side his regular food if this is what you mean. He did eat little bits here and there.

Thanks so much again for your advice and your guides! Tiny and I really appreciate it!