Closed "Chambers"

Tom

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Just wanted to say thanks for this thread. One of the best discussions I've seen on raising babies and closed chambers - as well as the desiccating effects of artificial UV.

With so many people raising torts today and the ability to quickly share real time information and results the hobby is just getting better and better for our charges.

Though I'm not raising babies now , if I were , a set up like Toms would be a top priority. I have been thinking about how to mitigate the drying effects of unfiltered (by atmosphere moisture) lamp UV. Even in closed systems.
I wonder if a plexiglass tray of water , under the lamp, would substitute for the filtration of atmosphere ? Or would the plexiglass just reduce the UV to the point of no use. I don't know enough about it to know.

What do you think ?


UV is not desiccating. Incandescent bulbs are desiccating because they emit high levels of IR-A.

Plexi and water would filter out all UV. They make a special type of plexi that allows UV to pass, but then I think the water would filter out the UV.
 

glitch4200

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Uv bulbs emit small amounts of infrared. Of uou placed multiple UVb bulbs together on a habitat it is going to do the same thing infrared but on a way smaller scale.. I saw it first hand. Drops in humidity. Becuase the uv ia not filtered either it does not pass through water from a lamp either. I want to find the graph I saw. That showed UVb spectral distribution the line trickled into the infrared zone just a smidgen around 700 nanometers. But then dies out about their. It peaks in the uv zone and drops off the chart at 2 percent power in the infrared zone. Any infrared even low low low amounts from UVb tube still slightly dissects.
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Kapidolo Farms

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Uv bulbs emit small amounts of infrared. Of uou placed multiple UVb bulbs together on a habitat it is going to do the same thing infrared but on a way smaller scale.. I saw it first hand. Drops in humidity. Becuase the uv ia not filtered either it does not pass through water from a lamp either. I want to find the graph I saw. That showed UVb spectral distribution the line trickled into the infrared zone just a smidgen around 700 nanometers. But then dies out about their. It peaks in the uv zone and drops off the chart at 2 percent power in the infrared zone. Any infrared even low low low amounts from UVb tube still slightly dissects.
View attachment 139336
700nm is visible red light according to the chart you posted, infrared is not visible and on the chart you show does not encompass the range of light you suggest comes from a UV bulb. I eagerly await your other source chart. This topic is of great interest.
 

tortoisegirl5

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I use lower wattage heat lamps, place them right in the glass aquarium, and use a plexiglass cover to seal in the humidity. I have not had any issues with mold, shell rot, or "lack of air-flow."

My Sulcatas, Redfoot (now yearling,) and Star hatchlings have been kept this way from day one and have grown smooth. I started my Greek (yearling now also) in a a sweater box with a humid hide, and she started to pyramid. It isn't bad, but it makes me feel like a failure.

Here are some pics of my aquariums.

As you can see in this one, the heat lamps are right down in the enclosure. The one over the water dish turns it into a little "sauna" and the smaller, darker of the two babies loves to lay in it. She will put her little head on the rim and go to sleep there.


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Here are the babies. They are bigger now (WAAAAAAYYYY past time to update pictures!)

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Here is where I kept my first Star before summer hit. You can see again the heat source is right down in there. In this case it is a 60 watt black light bulb (both this enclosure and the one above have these as a heat source with an additional florescent for light.)

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Here is the result...

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Next is my little Redfoot. This one started out in an old Metaframe slate bottom aquarium. The hood for the tank has two incandescent sockets, which hold compact florescents, and the other hanging down is a 60 watt black light bulb.

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Having that set up made this...

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:D:D:D
your torts are BEAUTIFULL!!!!! the enclosures look good to, the torts seem happy in them!
 

THBfriend

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Plexi and water would filter out all UV. They make a special type of plexi that allows UV to pass, but then I think the water would filter out the UV.

No, water does not filter out all UV. It's about as transparent for UV-A and B as it is for visible light. Several fish and other water-dwelling creatures actually have UV-A vision. Would be pointless if water would quickly absorb it. Here's the absorption curve of water.
 

Pearly

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Hi Guys! I love this thread! I've been beating my head against a wall with fighting the battle of humidity in air-conditioned house but with your thoughts and ideas I got some inspiration and thinking I maybe onto something! My babies nursery is 40 gal planted tank. My temps have been pretty consistent but humidity was just hit or miss. Went to Home Depot today and got some insulation stuff from the construction building materials section. The job will be completed tomorrow but I'll try to demonstrate here how I went about it having not a single "handy/engineering bone" in my body. View attachment ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1439189122.789500.jpg The cover screen is hinged in the middle so I had to do it in 2 phases. This is the first half. Holes cut out for lamp fixture and fogger hose. The insulation is secured with metal tape (found it where all the other insulation things were kept at HD). I'll do this same with the the other 1/2 tomorrow. View attachment ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1439189362.669310.jpg I don't like the opening for the fogger hose. Will have to look at plumbing section for some attachment to make it better. For now it works well. View attachment ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1439189521.045129.jpg limited in picture quality with just using iphone. View attachment ImageUploadedByTortoise Forum1439189640.185180.jpg Here is our sweet girl tearing prickly pear fruit for the very first time in her remodeled home. I'll post pics of finished work with readings from my meters later. For now, please take a look and kindly critique, offer better ideas if you please
 

Pearly

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Hi Guys! I love this thread! I've been beating my head against a wall with fighting the battle of humidity in air-conditioned house but with your thoughts and ideas I got some inspiration and thinking I maybe onto something! My babies nursery is 40 gal planted tank. My temps have been pretty consistent but humidity was just hit or miss. Went to Home Depot today and got some insulation stuff from the construction building materials section. The job will be completed tomorrow but I'll try to demonstrate here how I went about it having not a single "handy/engineering bone" in my body. View attachment 142827 The cover screen is hinged in the middle so I had to do it in 2 phases. This is the first half. Holes cut out for lamp fixture and fogger hose. The insulation is secured with metal tape (found it where all the other insulation things were kept at HD). I'll do this same with the the other 1/2 tomorrow. View attachment 142828 I don't like the opening for the fogger hose. Will have to look at plumbing section for some attachment to make it better. For now it works well. View attachment 142829 limited in picture quality with just using iphone. View attachment 142830 Here is our sweet girl tearing prickly pear fruit for the very first time in her remodeled home. I'll post pics of finished work with readings from my meters later. For now, please take a look and kindly critique, offer better ideas if you please
Btw, our babies home is in my daughter's bedroom. I have an awesome child (and 2 others, also great, just younger and not as mature as she is) and this new hobby is something she and I love doing together.
 

RecklessCyanide

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when you have a closed enclosure, how do you deal with the air ventilation. I know it's better to have fresh air for them which open top enclosure can easily do
 

Levi the Leopard

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when you have a closed enclosure, how do you deal with the air ventilation. I know it's better to have fresh air for them which open top enclosure can easily do

No closed chamber is "air tight". Air is also exchanged daily during feeding, cleaning the water dish or accessing your tortoise.

An open top enclosure in an entirely warm and humid room would be much better than the smaller, closed chambers....But most of us don't want to live in the same conditions that our tortoises need. Closed chambers solve that problem.
Nice, cool 73°F air in my house, +80° humid air in their house. Everybody is comfortable and happy :)
 

Yvonne G

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@Yvonne G I need help with a baby sulcata habitat and lighting questions can you please contact me via phone 8017838827 or email [email protected], Thanks! (Sulcata Lover)

You would be much better off posting your query on the open forum in a new thread. I don't raise baby sulcatas. If you're not comfortable starting your own thread for this, then @Tom would be the one to talk to.
 

Brian Alvarado

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Been meaning to do this one for a while now...

Over the years I have kept a lot of reptiles in a lot of different ways. I've learned a lot of stuff about a lot of species. Since finding and joining this forum almost two years ago, I've learned a TON more. Now I'm not just stumbling around alone in the dark. Now, with the help of all the fantastic TFO members, I can see and experience everyone else's enclosures and styles too.

There are a lot of good ways to house a tortoise indoors. Tank, tub, trough, table, and... closed chamber. Different methods work best for the various species and ages. Through all of my "experiments" and sharing the vast experience of others here on the forum, I have reached my current conclusion that "closed chambers", with a basking lamp inside, are the best means of housing the babies of most species. Everyone's situation is different, and we all live in different climates... heck our torts are all from different climates too. Still, overall, I have personally experienced the best results and seen the best results from others, in this style of enclosure. Several people come to mind, but Tyler, Neal, Kristina and KBaker, have especially shown their enclosures and the results. There are lots of others too, but these members have had the biggest influence on me recently.

Only in a closed chamber can I control the humidity properly. Its very dry where I live, and its a constant battle to maintain any humidity at all in most enclosures. In a closed chamber, its a piece of cake. I've used glass tanks and various styles of tortoise tables for years to house my chelonians, but the open tops let out all that beneficial humidity and heat. By putting my heat lamps and CHEs INSIDE the closed enclosure, they do NOT dry things out AND they use a lot less power to give me the same amount of heat. Plus, once they heat everything up and the thermostat kicks them off, the heat just stays in there. I'm using less electricity on my 4x8' closed chamber than I am on my 40 gallon open topped glass tank! (I have little electric meters called "Kill-A-Watt EZ"). The humidity is lower directly under the heat lamp, but its as high as I want to keep it all around that area and the rest of the enclosure.
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In theory this all sounds reasonable, but what happens in the real world? I've gotten the best results I've ever gotten in this type of enclosure. On a lot of my glass tanks I end up covering as much of the top as I can. It seems like the more and better I cover them, the better the results I get. But I still lose all my heat and humidity out of the hole that has to be there for my light fixtures. Like this one:
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This leads me to a big problem that has come up recently with several potential new tortoise keepers. Where does one go buy a "closed tortoise chamber" for their new pet? Most conventional enclosures are too shallow to have a closed top and still allow enough room for a hanging fixture with a hot bulb in it. I like the Vision tubs, but they are too short for this purpose. My leopard enclosure is 24" tall and that just barely accommodates things safely. When I build the next one it will be around 30" tall. I have not seen a pre-made enclosure with the right dimensions. Tyler showed me this one that he is using. I can't remember which species he is housing in this.
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Remember we are talking about housing babies. Not adults or even juveniles. Discussion is welcome here. I'm always wanting to learn more.
How would you cover up a 75 gallon glass tank so the temperatures stays in I dont have a lot of money or enough to buy an enclosed chamber
 

Alaskamike

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How would you cover up a 75 gallon glass tank so the temperatures stays in I dont have a lot of money or enough to buy an enclosed chamber
You can buy a piece of plexiglass and cut it to size. Then cut out a circle for the UVB.

Or.... You can make a tent like structure out of wood over the top , lights and all and cover it with plastic. Cheaper.

:)
 

Yvonne G

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How would you cover up a 75 gallon glass tank so the temperatures stays in I dont have a lot of money or enough to buy an enclosed chamber

That's easy. You just have to figure out the lights but an aquarium is the easiest to make a closed chamber. You could get a piece of plexi and cut holes for the lights/heat.
 

Tom

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glitch4200

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700nm is visible red light according to the chart you posted, infrared is not visible and on the chart you show does not encompass the range of light you suggest comes from a UV bulb. I eagerly await your other source chart. This topic is of great interest.


So I have been trying to find a better chart showing the spectral power of a uvb lamp that shows some of the infrared side of the spectrum. This is the best one I can find, since my old screenshots were lost I my old phone, I have tried to contact the company with no luck. But this kinds shows that the spectral line goes past the 700 Mark and continues into the infrared at that same spectral power level. It's not much at all.. But I'm sure it has some effect even if it's very small. Idk maybe I am wrong, but I would bet that Line continues past the 900 into the deeper infrared where it eventually dips off. Any lamp that is not subjected to our earth's atmosphere is considered unfiltered. So even a uvb lamp would emit small amounts of unfiltered infrared. But maybe it would be so substantial that saying it has any effect would be too much? But I still feel it could be present, whether or not it has effect on the reptile. Just a thought..

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You can compare that uvb spectral line to this daylight basking bulb spectral line just for reference and for others opinion too. And then the last pic is the spectrum of an infrared bulb, you will notice it is absent almost completely of the lower visible spectrum and is very powerful unfiltered infrared, almost 100 percent is at some of the most dehydrating parts of the spectrum for reptiles.
 

Kapidolo Farms

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Hi Shuan,

Thanks for the response. I wish the people who created these charts would decide on a standard of what part of the range moves from right to left or left to right. What to do? I guess just read them critically.

I have revisited this thread a few times or another you have contributed to. I sought an evaluation of the various heat producing devices from a friend who thought he would have time in his lab. That *** seems to have fallen apart, but in some dialogue regarding heat panels he had this to share.

"For the radiant heat panel, it looks like this is just what is called a blackbody emitter, which means that the light it gives off is just a function of the temperature that it runs at. After plugging it in, it runs at somewhere around 65 deg C, which means that the light that it gives off is all in the 4 micron and longer wavelength range of the infrared -- nothing even close to the visible.. My equipment will not measure anything that long, but it really shouldn't matter, as anything biological is going to react to these wavelengths pretty much as just absorbed heat. These are the sort of wavelengths that you see on one of those heat sensing cameras, where the brighter things have the higher body temperature. If you want to get an idea of the spectrum, just go to the link
http://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.phpand put in the values of temp = 65 deg C, and set the lower limit for the graph as 2 microns, and the upper limit around 16 microns. Hit "calculate" and it will display the curve for a blackbody source at this temp."

When I compared the result of this web page based calculator I see a small portion of the heat produced by heat emitters like sold by the Bean Farm and Reptile Basics still produces some radiant heat that would be atmosphere filtered. I use these emitters and hope the effect is negligible.

I also use heat mats for seed starting placed between two floor tiles for 'gentle' overhead heat.

I also still use a few red heat lamps, but have them so they shine on a tile above a hide, so their direct illumination does not go to the tortoise but to the tiles which then radiates the heat down into a hide. I'm going to use them up, when they burn out I will them discard them.

Thanks again.
 

ArcT

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View attachment 104146 View attachment 104147 what is the best way to mount my Heat lamps. I noticed Tom "in the beginning photos" has some wire mesh on the top. should i do something like this to create some air flow. This is the last step before I can start putting my substrate in and get my baby leopards in their new indoor enclosure.


Having the lights on top can work, but is more difficult to control humidity. I used wire mesh and top mounted lights. The chimney effect of the heat for removal of humidity is difficult, but not impossible to deal with. (84°\95% cool, 97°ish/75% hot side average)

I used automotive weather stripping to seal the lid gap and aluminum tape to close off as much airflow around the light fixture as possible. I still need to mist daily and pour at least 32oz of water on the substrate daily to keep the evaporation under control.

Just wanted to toss the info out there for consideration in light placement. Good luck with the torts.
 
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