Temp vs Humidity

[SteveM]

I've had my temporary solid lid on Mikey's enclosure since yesterday morning and have noticed a couple of things. The temp and humidity on the cool end where his hide and coconut fiber is at stays at around 79°F/99% but the hot end has cyprus mulch and is really hard to regulate. The temp keeps trying to go over 100 and I have to constantly spray water to keep the humidity over 35%. Right now the hot end is showing 98°F/62% but it's only temporary, within the hour it'll be 100-102°F/35% I have an adjustable height light holder, humidifier and laser thermometer on the way. Is it possible the light is just too low right now?

 

[Tom]

I've had my temporary solid lid on Mikey's enclosure since yesterday morning and have noticed a couple of things. The temp and humidity on the cool end where his hide and coconut fiber is at stays at around 79°F/99% but the hot end has cyprus mulch and is really hard to regulate. The temp keeps trying to go over 100 and I have to constantly spray water to keep the humidity over 35%. Right now the hot end is showing 98°F/62% but it's only temporary, within the hour it'll be 100-102°F/35% I have an adjustable height light holder, humidifier and laser thermometer on the way. Is it possible the light is just too low right now?

I need a picture of the enclosure and lighting set up. There is no way the temperature on one end of a closed chamber is 79 degrees, while the other end is 100+. Something is off. Is it 100+ directly under the bulb at tortoise shell height? Or is the whole hot end of the enclosure 100+? What thermometers are you using?

We will help you get things sorted out with a little more info!

 

[SteveM]

It isn't a closed chamber, there is a 1/2" gap all the way around. It had a screen cover but after finding this place and seeing that it was bad I got rid of it and cut a hole in the lid of a huge plastic tote big enough for the light fixture to fit through. It has one of those 3 in 1 bulbs but I have a ceramic heat emitter on the way for night use. Honestly, I didn't think it was supposed to even have humidity after talking to the pet store employee and several sites said it would get shell rot. The digital zoo med thermometer and hygrometers are on each end and at shell height. In 2 days of reading on this website I've realized that everything I've heard or read over the last 37 years was wrong, I'm glad I never owned a turtle or tortoise until now. Anyway, as soon as we get done priming, painting and doing trim work in the house (time and weather permitting) I'm going to get started on building a 4x8 closed chamber enclosure for it.

Edit: I'm currently using one of those light hangers from the pet store that I've had to contort 10 different ways to get the light as high as it will go without being higher than the enclosure or falling over, an adjustable height mount is on the way.

 

[SteveM]

Here is the light.

 

[Tom]

In 2 days of reading on this website I've realized that everything I've heard or read over the last 37 years was wrong...

You are not alone my friend. Same for all of us up until about 10 years ago when some of us here started to figure it all out.

You are doing pretty good working with what you've got there. Here are my suggestions to improve things:
1. Triple the substrate. This will help with humidity.
2. Use terra cotta saucers sunk into the substrate for food and water.
3. Add a humid hide in addition to the open ended log.
4. Having the lights on the outside shining through a hole makes a chimney effect that sucks the heat and humidity right up and out. Things will be MUCH easier for you and Peter for your tortoise once you get a closed chamber.
5. Building one doesn't work well unless you use expanded PVC sheets. There is nothing you can buy in any store to coat wood with to make it stand up to the constant wetness and humidity. Its actually cheaper to just buy a ready made PVC enclosure than to buy the materials and build it yourself.

Here is the lighting info:
There are four elements to heating and lighting:

1. 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. You need to check the temp with a thermometer directly under the bulb and get it to around 95-100F (36-37C).
2. 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. In most cases you'd only need day heat for a temperate species like Testudo or DT, as long as your house stays above 60F (15-16C) at night. Some people in colder climates or with larger enclosures will need multiple CHEs or RHPs to spread out enough heat.
3. Ambient 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 LED bulb types are both fine.
4. UV. If you can get your tortoise outside for an hour 2 or 3 times a week, you won't need indoor UV. In colder climates, get one of the newer HO type fluorescent tubes. Which type will depend on mounting height. 5.0 bulbs make almost no UV. I like the 12% HO bulbs from Arcadia. You need a meter to check this: https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html A good UV bulb only needs to run for 2-3 hours mid day. You need the basking bulb and the ambient lighting to be on at least 12 hours a day.

 

[SteveM]

I just learned a few more things, thanks. I'll definitely look into buying a closed chamber pvc, it would be a lot of wasted time and money to build a nice enclosure and have it ruined by humidity. I live in the south so he'll have plenty of outdoor time when late spring gets here. It was 75 when I got home this evening but still wet from the rain over the last few days. Is it ok to have him out walking around in a wet yard? I feel dumb asking that because it's an animal but I've got decades of wrong info floating around in my head.

 

[Tom]

Is it ok to have him out walking around in a wet yard?

75, wet and sunny is fine because the tortoise can get in the sun to warm up. 75, wet and overcast will be much too cold due to evaporative cooling and the inability to warm up.

 

[SteveM]

I took him outside today, I'm not sure that he has ever been outside an enclosure, he was all over the place. It was kind of funny, he's still so small that he doesn't weigh the grass down and kind if just walks over the top of it. Since he had some real sunlight I took the heat/uv-a/uv-b bulb out and put the ceramic heat emitter in and it made a big difference. The cool end pretty much stayed the same but the hot end dropped 8° and went up 12% average humidity. Hopefully we keep having decent weather so he can go out more but winter is coming. We don't get much snow but we get our fair share of ice. We can have ice without snow but no snow without a layer of ice under it. Besides that he'll never get to be outside unsupervised; we have snakes, birds of prey, racoons, opossums, etc.

 

[Tom]

I took him outside today, I'm not sure that he has ever been outside an enclosure, he was all over the place. It was kind of funny, he's still so small that he doesn't weigh the grass down and kind if just walks over the top of it. Since he had some real sunlight I took the heat/uv-a/uv-b bulb out and put the ceramic heat emitter in and it made a big difference. The cool end pretty much stayed the same but the hot end dropped 8° and went up 12% average humidity. Hopefully we keep having decent weather so he can go out more but winter is coming. We don't get much snow but we get our fair share of ice. We can have ice without snow but no snow without a layer of ice under it. Besides that he'll never get to be outside unsupervised; we have snakes, birds of prey, racoons, opossums, etc.

We all have those predators everywhere in the country.

Make a large safe enclosure outside for him. Loose outside will eventually end up with you losing him, no matter how careful you are, or intend to be. It happens to everyone.

I like to have a lid for smaller ones, but after about 5-6 inches, you don't have to worry about day time predation.

Here is just one example:


This pic was taken during our "winter", so not much shade. You can see from the shadows how low the angle of the sun is. Use more or less shade depending on your temps and weather, but always have at least some shade.

 

[SteveM]

That's probably what I'll build.

The fogger came in today, it made a world of difference. The temp on the hot end dropped to about the same as the low end but the humidity sky rocketed, I'm going to have to lower the settings to bring the temp back up some. He's like a whole different tortoise, he's eating more and sleeping all stretched out instead of tucked in. I also quadrupled the depth of the coconut so he could burrow some if he wanted to.