Where I started, where I'm at, and planning for building my tortoises permanent indoor enclosure

[Mad_Moose]

@Littleredfootbigredheart
I figured I'd do enclosure talk in a separate forum post so its all at least a little bit tidier!
I got my tortoise 'The pacer fitness gram test is a multi stage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues. Students begin at the starting line. Once the test begins, the running speed starts slowly, but gets faster each minute after you hear the signal (beep)!' (Pacer for short) out of the blue when one of my coworkers mentioned that she no longer wanted to, or could care for her russian tortoise about 10 days ago. Me being bad decision maker and a bleeding heart said "oh I can take on a tortoise!" (I can but I've never had a reptile before, and all of my previous experiences with tortoises are based on the setups one of my relatives has for their entire collection of turtles and tortoises, which might not translate well to just one tortoise)

This is how he originally arrived, in a 2x4 rabbit hutch enclosure on sand substrate with the floorspace so cluttered he couldn't really make any use of it
The first day I had him I changed his substrate to coco coir+leftover cypress mulch, flattened and increased surface area of his "basking spot" (it wasn't really getting anywhere close with the crap *** lights he came with) and then figured out what bowls that he came with would be easiest to sink into the substrate for a very temporary feeding and water setup (my favorite hardware store was closed because it was too late on a saturday at the time) and offered him some canada thistle that I picked from the pasture to see if he'd be interested

Day 2 Sunday - swapped all of his dishes for terra cotta, got an incandescent bulb to try and get closer to basking temps with an inaccurate thermometer (one of the dials) (involved finding a taller rock and making a ramp of coco coir to it so he was closer to the bulb) and placed orders for a digital laser thermometer, UVB setup, timed thermostat and seed mix so I could start growing him some food other than the store spring mix + offered weeds at different points (also oops didn't know you had to soak mazuri until just recently so I just had it sitting in there as a pedestal for his cuttlebone😝)

Towards the end of week 1 - the thermometer, thermostat and timer arrived - so I got that set up so it would turn off the basking flood if it got above 104 on the sensor

This is merely a stop gap measure for now, until I can get him a bigger enclosure built, I've recently reclaimed a lot of wood from a demolition project in the barn to increase the size of my sheeps winter housing, and I have plans to loft my bed so Pacer can be moved into my room so there's less opportunity for him to accidentally be exposed to the cats and the biohazard that is their saliva.


This is where I'm currently sitting with my conceptual plans, I saw another user on here doing the planters for swapping veggie growth out and I thought it was such a good idea that I want to incorporate it into my final project! I might make the whole thing deeper since I was thinking it might be a good idea to have some permanent plants to help me remember to get the substrate wet while at the hardware store today (got a hosta, and a couple of spider plants for that purpose). I'll also be putting a hardware cloth lid over the top to keep the dog and my cats out (because I have 0 trust in my animals to not act as animals do and get into problems)
Main points/goals
combining floorspace since I don't have much room to work with (which is why the dog crate build will be part of building the base)
access for my short little gremlin arms to spot clean as necessary and clean and fill food and water
trying to encourage full use of the weird shape by setting up back and forth tracks to various resources
TLDR it is work in progress - if anyone has thoughts/suggestions I'd love to hear them!

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Oooo thank you for this! Really cool to look over!❤️
With your plans, am I right in saying it’s roughly a 6x2 foot for the longest section, with roughly a 3x2 foot added on to make an ‘L’ shape? Those shaped enclosures are really good for making use of tricky spaces!
Then is the crate underneath for storage or?
What brand of UV is it you’re using? If my calculations are correct looking at your design, you have roughly 18” from the base to the bottom of your bed underneath, which isn’t too bad, but could potentially be cutting close with bulb height when you take into account for the tortoises height and substrate depth.
As a side note lol, did you switch out the red heat bulb for an incandescent floodlight for the basking?🙂

 

[Mad_Moose]

The crate underneath is to house my dog when I'm not at home, because his crate takes up about 30% of my bedroom at the moment and I'm thinking about using the rest of the dead space for storage tubs of my crafting fabrics, art supplies and guest bedding
For UVB I procured an arcadia bulb and fixture (the 12% UVB tube), but I do also have plans to make an outdoor spot for him to be (weather permitting) (thinking about combining the flower bed build up front with it, all it would take is extra predator and escape proofing and then selecting plants and growth medium that are tortoise safe)
Currently my back of the envelope placement calcs for the UVB are 65-36=bare floor of enclosure about 29 inches from slats of the bed frame 29-~6 inches for substrate = 23 inches away from ground, and 20 inches from shell height if I mount it directly to the bed
the red light was evicted day 2 for an incandescent flood!

 

[Mad_Moose]

on the topic of substrate for the outside planters - I make my own compost (the old mix was pine shavings and sheep waste, new mix (after getting schooled by some wool processers) is straw, waste hay, sheep manure, and the occasional horse pile, I never put trimmings from yard work on the pile) Would this be safe to use as substrate in the outdoor enclosures/mixed into coco coir indoors for the planted sections of an enclosure?