I live near you in Beaumont and you need to be careful in regards to putting him in the garage. Too hot is also a bad thing! You can make a tort safe outdoor enclosure and spread food grade diatomaceous earth around in regards to your fear of ants. It's a real problem especially if your yard is overgrown. We "treat" ours every three months with food grade DE and never have an issue. He really should be outside full time right now with a heated night box. You can get all this info on the sticky notes in the forum. You can plant some tort safe grasses in your pool (I would get him the biggest one made, the one you have is good for now but you can get larger at Wal*Mart) and no more lettuce. Not good as the main source of nutrition. Our temps lately have not been horrible but make sure you offer part sun and deep shade. You don't want him to fry to death. For inside you want warm and humid, cool and humid leads to sickness. Check your temps/lights and make those adjustments and keep him outside. Right now it's raining and our guy is tromping around in the grass in the rain (warm rain = GOOD.)
Below is our first outdoor set up for our Sulcata when he was little. All the grasses are tort safe and highly nutritious. The water dish he can step into and he had a hide as well as a large Mexican heather to hide under (tort safe, he can eat it.) You can make a cover out of hardware cloth and 2x2's to protect against possums, raccoons, dogs - you name it. Of course this is just for daytime romps, he would come in at night.
I hope this helps some!
Below is our first outdoor set up for our Sulcata when he was little. All the grasses are tort safe and highly nutritious. The water dish he can step into and he had a hide as well as a large Mexican heather to hide under (tort safe, he can eat it.) You can make a cover out of hardware cloth and 2x2's to protect against possums, raccoons, dogs - you name it. Of course this is just for daytime romps, he would come in at night.
I hope this helps some!
