Thermoelectric cooling

[kjkrum]

I recently acquired a desert tortoise hatchling from some friends who acquired it from some weirdo at a party... long story. Anyway, the poor little guy's been living in an aquarium, so I need to build a better enclosure ASAP.

I'm thinking of building a simple enclosure like this one and putting a small Peltier cooler in the deepest part of the hutch to simulate the temperature of an underground burrow. Has anyone ever done something like this?

The surface of a Peltier device can get a lot colder than 70F, so it would have to be on the ceiling or behind a screen where he couldn't touch it. It might also need a condensation tray.

 

[wellington]

Hello and Welcome

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi and welcome!

No, you don't need anything like that. A nice, thick layer of substrate is all that is needed for the baby to be able to cool down. Baby tortoises should stay around 75F at the coolest and around 85F to 90F at the warmest. We usually try to get it up to 100F or so directly under the light, fading to around 75F at the far end. And in that vein, your manufactured tortoise house wouldn't be big enough to allow for that temperature gradient.