Do I humidity and temperature controller

[HtVic]

I work and go to school everyday.
I have to leave tort at home alone at least 5 hours/day
sometime is more than that.
I am using 150W light bulb, CHE in a 90gal tank
I need to adjust the temp and humi first thing in the morning.
after I go, I have to let everything run by itself, should I get one of those controller to keep an eye on the hum and temp?
those are pretty expensive

 

[ascott]

I would say that if you have to make constant manual adjustments then yes. However if you find you are not making too many manual adjustments then no...just my opinion....also..I do not house any hatchlings....if I were responsible for hatchlings I would most definitely be ruled by my OCD a bit more...lol

 

[jaizei]

I wouldn't worry about the humidity while away, but I would have some sort of thermostat to control the temperature.

 

[DesertGrandma]

You should at the very least have a thermostat on your heat source (your CHE) so that the heat remains at a constant temperature, not too hot and not too cold, day and night. The one I use is a BAH 1000 and it is very good, but there are others on the market too. Maybe you will get some other recommendations. Hopefully you have also adjusted your basking spot light up/down to get the perfect temperature under that too.

 

[cherylim]

I think it depends a lot on your individual tortoise age and set-up.

Emrys is two, and he gets left alone up to ten hours a day, but when I'm around his enclosure is regularly kept nice and moist so the humidity's always good (it helps that our house is about a damp as it could possibly be without falling down!), and we keep the central heating on constantly with a thermostat to put the whole house at optimum tortoise temperature. Emrys just has the one 100w basking light, which works fine, and I have some back-up heating equipment in case our boiler breaks down for more than a day, so he's not facing the cold.

Obviously having the heating on all day if it's not necessary is expensive, and there are cheaper solutions if you ONLY want to keep a tortoise at the right temperature, but I think I'm cold-blooded as well so I like using Emrys as an excuse to be constantly warm.