Heating

[Seattlesky]

What heating sources would one receive D
Just as an upgrade from a light. Do those ceramic heat coils work well? Better? Worse? Or are si.ple heat lights the best way to go? And as far as heat lights go, are certain colors better than others? Such as white or red or black or blue

 

[Yvonne G]

I use a Mercury Vapor Bulb during the day for heat and UVB:



and a black light for night time:

Some people don't like the colored lights, so they use a Ceramic Heat Emitter (CHE) at night:

 

[sibi]

I use a Mercury Vapor Bulb during the day for heat and UVB:

View attachment 164857

and a black light for night time:

Some people don't like the colored lights, so they use a Ceramic Heat Emitter (CHE) at night:

That's a fantastic response, Yvonne!

 

[Tom]

You need several elements for a baby sulcata. I broke it down here for another member:

"Let me break down the heating and lighting thing. You need three or four elements:
1. Heat. During the day this is best accomplished with 65 watt flood bulbs from the hardware store set on digital timers. These also give some light. Move them higher or lower to get the basking temp under them correct. I buy them in 6 packs, so if they burn out I always have a spare on hand.
2. Light. Sometimes the basking bulb and ambient room light are enough. If not, use a tube style florescent strip light form the hardware store. Run it on the same timer as the heat lamps. Try to get a bulb in the 5000-6500K color range. The more common 2500K color range bulbs look yellowish.
3. Ambient temp maintenance and night heat. Tortoises need it dark at night, but still warm. This is best accomplished with the use of a CHE in a ceramic based fixture. Get the 11" ceramic based domes from Home Depot for all your heat lamps.
4. UV. Best to sun them for an hour two or more times a week. Its okay to skip a few weeks over winter and this will do no harm. Since you live in the frozen North (Okay, Midwest, but its a figure of speech…), you will need to provide some artificial UV. Several options for this:
a. Use a mercury vapor bulb, like the power sun for your basking bulb. Use this in the Home Depot fixture I mentioned, not in a small pet store dome or deep dome. Replace it every fall.
b. Use a long tube type 10.0 florescent bulb. These MUST be mounted no more than 10-12" from the tortoise to be effective.
c. Get an Arcadia 12% HO bulb from lightyourreptiles.com. These are great, but they make a lot of UV. Mount it at least 18" and as much as 26" away from the tortoise and put it on its own timer for only about 4 hours a day."

Hope this helps.

These might help too:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.79895/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/

 

[Seattlesky]

Thanks you guys.

 

[Big Charlie]

The wonderful thing about a CHE is it lasts a really long time.