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New to cherry heads. Babies might have shell rot?
- Thread starter threeheadedshadow
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The water bowl needs to go . Get a terracotta plant saucer at the home depot works way better . As for what caused the shell rot . I would say fungus of some sort . Could be from the bedding . I like hard wood mulch and cypress mulch over coco coir . You can also use leaves from your yard . They love to hide in them . You don't have full blown rot yet . So clean with the soap I told you about and apply foot cream daily until its gone . Make sure you get all old food and poop out daily . This helps keep shell rot away . Make sure one side of the enclosure stays a little dry so they can dry out . It's all about microclimates . You need humidity without wet substrate . The coco coir holds water good put you some cypress mulch on top with some leaves .
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Curious why the water bowl needs to go? If it works why not continue to use it? I understand the simplicity of a terracotta plant dish but what I am using seems effective.
The torts are looking better after first treatment and did the second this evening. Their new enclosure seems to be doing well holding humidity and temp as well. A little playing and I will get it perfect.
Is it necessary to have a basking area or just overall 80+/- degrees? With the basking lamp on it reads about 90 and the humidity drops to 60+/- with just the heat coil its at 80 with right now a 76% humidity.
The torts are looking better after first treatment and did the second this evening. Their new enclosure seems to be doing well holding humidity and temp as well. A little playing and I will get it perfect.
Is it necessary to have a basking area or just overall 80+/- degrees? With the basking lamp on it reads about 90 and the humidity drops to 60+/- with just the heat coil its at 80 with right now a 76% humidity.
Too many young torts have flipped over and drowned trying to get out and in them.
The terracotta dishes are shallow with sloped sides. Very easy to get in and out safely...
The terracotta dishes are shallow with sloped sides. Very easy to get in and out safely...
I keep my coco coir MUCH moister for my baby burmese blk mtn torts with no plastron problems so far. I don't use the mossy stuff though?
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Thank you for the explanation. I will make sure to get one the next time I am at the store.
AnimalLady
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you could also dig it down and make it level with your substrate, but i foresee lots of coco stuff dirtying it up quickly.
Hi and welcome to the forum. Your torts are real cuties. I keep cherryhead and redfoot babies (was also misguided like so many of us and got 2). My setup is similar to yours and I have reptibark on the bottom (about 1.5-2 inch thick layer), then coco coir mixed with little organic soil (about 4inches thick) and different mosses on the surface to keep things clean (mostly frog moss and mood moss) with bunches of spongy reindeer moss in the hides for burrowing. I've had it this way since July and the babies have not had any problems
this is one of the babies sitting in reindeer moss. 
here you can see the floor of the tank better. 
and here is another one sticking her head out from her cave. I keep things humid. My ambient humidity is usually in the 80's %. I used to keep substrate pretty wet (in 90's) but my plants key dying from wet roots and now the substrate probe has been reading 78% humidity, some of the plants have died but some are doing very well so I'll be getting more of those in near future. I do not "sterilize" my moss before putting it in, just soak it in warm water. I never take anything out of the enclosure, except for the food/water bowls for cleaning. The earthworms, couple of pillbugs and tons of tiny soil centipedes are working on keeping the biological cycle going. Don't worry about this bump on the road with shell rot. I hear it happens a lot and it's easy to treat. Just be sure your heat/lighting is good, use the anti fungal cream, and most of all ENJOY YOUR TORT BABIES! They are so cute!
this is one of the babies sitting in reindeer moss. here you can see the floor of the tank better. and here is another one sticking her head out from her cave. I keep things humid. My ambient humidity is usually in the 80's %. I used to keep substrate pretty wet (in 90's) but my plants key dying from wet roots and now the substrate probe has been reading 78% humidity, some of the plants have died but some are doing very well so I'll be getting more of those in near future. I do not "sterilize" my moss before putting it in, just soak it in warm water. I never take anything out of the enclosure, except for the food/water bowls for cleaning. The earthworms, couple of pillbugs and tons of tiny soil centipedes are working on keeping the biological cycle going. Don't worry about this bump on the road with shell rot. I hear it happens a lot and it's easy to treat. Just be sure your heat/lighting is good, use the anti fungal cream, and most of all ENJOY YOUR TORT BABIES! They are so cute!- Joined
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@Pearly
Thanks for the suggestions. I like the use of moss you are using and will probably some like you have. What kind of plants do find successful in your enclosure? I was thinking of adding a spider plant for shade.
Thanks for the suggestions. I like the use of moss you are using and will probably some like you have. What kind of plants do find successful in your enclosure? I was thinking of adding a spider plant for shade.
For me the chunks of moss around the water dish do the trick. My babies walk in and out of it few times a day to drink or just ... for the heck of walking in water. Before I had moss their water needed to be changed several times a day
you can see a little moss on one side, and couple of earthworms in the soil. 
this is very dark image but you can see how I lined moss and couple of flat rocks around the "water well" their surface is on this same level as the water dish edge (dish is "buried" in substrate)
So far most of EVERYTHING in there have died! It's either too hot, or too wet, or too much "sun" or too dark! The only plants that have been doing great are Pothos (devil's ivy, the pretty lime green or variegated heart shaped leaves on my pics). Also have had sanseveria (motherinlaw tongue) and parlor palm that have been there since the end of June and are still alive and growing but lately not looking too happy. I've been moving them around each time I turn the substrate to find best place for them. It's hard in the tank to grow pretty big plants due to heat elements just 10inches from the substrate. I have some spider plant babies growing in pot now that I'll be trying in there. Well, my babies are growing pretty fast and this winter I start working on their outdoor enclosure in my garden. Where they'll stay during a day maybe next summer, but will come back to their nursery bedroom at night. Once they get big enough to be full time outdoors I'll probably keep the tank and put something small (maybe some lizard or something that will stay tiny in its "big home". I happen to like the looks of it. It bothers me that the space in there is limited and they are little bulldozers, knocking stuff off and out of place all the time, but that tells me that they are active also when I don't look, and that's good. I hope my pictures and though help you in some ways. Merry Christmas
AnimalLady
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That's an awesome idea!!! Thanks!
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Well i have been giving them the cream nearly every day. Just gave them a bath and used the soap. After the bath went on more anti fungal cream. Let me know how they look!
Is the whitish stuff on the plastrons cream or the shell color?
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It is the cream. The only white is the ridge line in the center of the little guy on the first pic's plastron.
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The smallest redfoot is looking a lot better! Plasteron looks good and feels solid. The second redfoot on the other hand is developing a new problem. I went to take her out this morning for a quick bath and i noticed an underbite starting to form and the beak is white? Any help is appreciated.
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They look very good.
I can't help with the bite issue, that tort looks fantastic. I think you should start a new thread for your bite problem, it will attract more attention in its own thread.
I'm happy to hear the shell rot is under control. @Yvonne G has experience with beak trimming stuff. I can only suggest to you to get cuttlebone and just have it available to your babies at all times and serve their food on piece of slate rock if you don't have those in place already. Both measures help them "file" the beaks down, but like I said, Yvonne is the one who knows about beaks. I think she was saying in one of the post that there are threads about trimming beaks and I think she even mentioned instructional pictures or video in there. Go to "search" and see if you can find those threads. I'll be anxious to hear about your follow up on this. I'm learning here to become better tort grandma for my babies too
I'll tell you, you have got THE CUTEST Cherryheads!!! What are their names?
this is my grand-cherry-tort-boy (supposedly) his name is TuckerSimilar threads
