possibly pyramiding?

Violettes

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my mom got a tortoise a couple of years ago from a pet store. recently i've been looking closer at him and doing some research and i'm sort of worried that he's started pyramiding, but i don't know if i'm just being paranoid or not. i wanted to get some opinions before i bothered worrying my mom about it.
i'm unsure if tortoises at a young age have naturally bumpy shells or not, and since i'm not sure how old he is it was hard for me to search around for an answer ): my guess is that he's only about two years old.
i apologize if these photos are bad, i only have an ipod on me and i was trying to quickly take a few photos!

(i'm also afraid that he has dry skin. ): he doesn't have very good humidity in his cage right now, but i'm doing all i can to find a way to give him better humidity! i'm not sure how most people keep it in the cage though..)

p2aUAeO.jpg QBUcPSX.jpg

thanks for your answers in advance! i'm really worried about him
 

naturalman91

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you're correct there is some pyramiding going on there but pyramiding is caused by to low of a humidity at a young age if you were to bump up your humidity now it would help and new growth come in smooth do you currently have a humidity gauge ?
 

Violettes

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i do, and it says the humidity is only 35-40%! ): don't tortoises need to have it around 80%? if i went out and bought a fogger, would that bring up the humidity?
 

abclements

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That specific tortoise does need high humidity. He is a red footed tortoise and they live in south America where there is a considerable amount of humidity. He is more than likely older that 2 year's old unless you have a mutant or I am way oversizing him in my mind. I have a 2 year old that is 5" long and she seems to be on the largish side for her age.

Lets start from square one. Can you provide us some info?

What does his enclosure look like? Indoor or ourdoor? If indoor, what bulbs, how are you heating... things like that... pictures really help. What are you feeding him, how often does he get each food?

Give us as much information as you can about how you are keeping this tortoise and we can help you improve things! :)
 

naturalman91

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i'd say you need to bump up humidity for an adult i'm not really sure as what humidity you need because i don't have a adult yet but i keep my hatchling at a steady 80% with temps of atleast 83 degress not even letting the temp drop at night. but for adults i know they can be offered lower temps and lower humidity just not drastically lower humidity for a adult i'd say and i'm guessing here of 60-70% but i'm sure a expert will be here shortly
 

Violettes

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(pictures will be included but i will try to explain anyway!) he has an indoor cage that's next to a window (not much help there though, but decided to add it anyway.) his cage used to be a big wooden bookshelf but we took out the shelves and rigged it up so it would be tortoise-safe. its around 6 feet long and 21 inches wide (so almost 6 by 2!) and we have 2 heat lamps at each end of the cage. i'm PRETTY SURE one of the bulbs is a zoo med powersun UV/UVB bulb while the other might just be a regular heat bulb (my mom bought them awhile ago, sorry! i'm pretty sure the one is right though, based on the fact that it was nearly $80 and looks the exact same on the petco website) we feed him romaine lettuce with every meal but he likes eating things like tomatoes, bananas, (not may, i heard it wasn't too good for him.) and watermelons. (when outside he likes to eat the grass and clovers. i heard it was okay for him, so i hope that information is right.) he dislikes kale so we stopped buying it for him. he gets a bowl or two a day, we usually feed him if we've seen him eat and he's still hanging out on top of his food dish like he wants more. there have been times though where he will go days without eating at all ):6CulSjX.jpg o4zMo4b.jpg
(this is where he likes to hang out. he likes to soak in his little tub)

i had a few questions about future lighting plans. i'm not very happy with how his lights are right now, since i think it keeps the cage all about the same temp. (80ish i do believe! maybe a little bit under that. at least in the high 70's) do strip lights have UVB bulbs? i know its important that they have the "natural sunlight" UVB's bring. if i can use strip lights, how many would i need for a cage his size? i've also read up on ceramic heat emitters.. could they be used if i used a different UVB light? (the one he has right now which has both is super expensive, and sometimes it can blow within a week of buying it! ): other times though, it can last a couple of months) if i did use CHE would i only have one at one side of the cage, say if a basking light was at the other end? i really do want to give him a range of temperatures, but i'm sort of confused on how to do it..
sorry if these are a lot of questions, i really just want to give him a better setup but i'm not 100% sure what i'm doing!
 

abclements

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No worries about a lot of questions! We love questions here! It means you care! I'm going to do my best to respond to each question, but if I miss one, just let me know lol

Next to the window actually is probably doing more harm than good. It creates a lot of heat and might/probably is contributing to the humidity problem.

The bookshelf is awesome for smaller torts. I'm assuming that he is at least 7"-8" from the picture. I always tell people, 10 shell lengths by 5 shell lengths at a minimum. So 6X2 Is probably getting pretty small. Obviously bigger is always better, but that's a good guideline for minimum size of an enclosure.

The powersun is a great uvb bulb, so keep that! I would buy a CHE and put it on a thermostat that is set to around 82, that way it won't turn on until it needs to. That's what I have set up and it works great! My CHE is on the far left side of my enclosure and the thermostat probe is about at the mid point. Hot side gets to about 90F and cool side never drops below 78F.

The diet is lacking variety but is a good start. Grass and clover are fine. Make sure he's getting some good wholesome weeds and supplement that with spring mix from the store if you have to.

I can't tell what your substrate is, but that could be killing humidity as well. Hanging out in the tub is a sign of wanting more humidity.

Strip lights do come in uvb options. You can buy them as short as 15" long to 4' long, but 2 18" tubes placed across the short end should be enough light to fill that enclosure (please do consider a larger enclosure if possible though). These also work super well with the CHEs! Just put one on a thermostat, set it and forget it! If you wanted to do a basking light at one end and a CHE at the other, that would work really nicely.

Hopefully I didn't get too scatter brained! If any of this is confusing or any other questions pop up, just s t keep asking! :)
 

abclements

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Oh, to help solve the humidity problem, I suggest a closed chamber type enclosure. You could do this with the book shelf by just simple covering 2/3 to completely with plexiglass. This traps the humidity in the enclosure and is super easy to keep the humidity up. Just cover it in the plexi, cut holes for the CHE and other lights and you're good to go.
 

TortoiseWorld

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You can't reverse that pyramiding, it's too late!
But if you want, you can stop it from getting worse by putting it in a closed humid enclosure or move to a very humid climate.
 

Yvonne G

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I must say, you've done a very good job providing a large habitat for your tortoise. There's plenty of room in there for it. Here's are my suggestions:

The tortoise is probably full grown.

Remove everything from the book case and line it with plastic. Plastic sheeting, a shower curtain, anything that you can get to fit in there is fine.

Get new substrate. I like to use orchid bark, but quite a few of our members use coconut coir. You can buy this in pet stores. It is sometimes called Bed-A-Beast and comes in a square brick. You put the brick in a 5 gallon bucket of hot water and it re-hydrates and falls apart. Then drain off the water and squeeze most of the water out and put it in the habitat. You might need two brick to give you enough substrate in that nice, large book case. When it starts to dry out, pour more water on it.

Once you have the substrate in there, pat it down with your hand to make it not so fluffy. This makes it easier to walk on and keeps it off the food and out of the waterer.

Bury some plants in the substrate. Make it look like a jungle in there.

Add a couple of hiding places, a feeding tile and a waterer.

Once you have it all fixed up, then cover or partially cover it to keep the warm, moist air inside.

Here's an example of what you should be shooting for:

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread...-my-redfoot-tortoise.13399/page-2#post-120298
 

abclements

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Hi Yvonne. I must question you on the size statement. This tort is a store bought red foot, which means it is more than likely a Northern Red Foot and will grow to be 12-14 inches. In my opinion, a 21'' wide enclosure is much to small for an animal of this size. At a full grown size, that wouldn't even be 2 full shell lengths. At its current size, it barely 3 shell lengths.
 

Yvonne G

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Well, it could be a little wider, but at 6' long, it seems plenty big to me. I'd like to see a picture of the tortoise inside the habitat, but from the picture up above, it looks like a pretty good size for a full grown redfooted tortoise.
 

abclements

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Ah yes! 6' long is great! If there was a way to add maybe another foot in width, then I think things would be looking pretty good!
 

Violettes

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(i'm assuming you measure a tortoise from the very bottom of his shell all the way up to where his head pokes out, yeah? if so he is around 7-8 inches and i have no idea how you could have known that just by looking at a picture! i'm impressed haha)

we're trying to give him what we have right now, but we will be upgrading his system once we have the extra money :) we have to find a way to close off the top of his cage first, as of right now we have plastic wrap over some of it to keep the humidity inside. we can't always leave it running though, as it tends to boost the humidity through the whole apartment and it actually causes mold to grow! and that's not good on any of us.
i will try to run it for an hour or two throughout the day so he can still get some of the much needed humidity. if we got a plexiglass top, could we just cover up the whole top to keep the humidity in for him, but out of the living room air to stop mold growth? (it could be that the humidifier he has right now isn't actually /made/ for reptiles. its just an old one we have laying around.)
DSCF0084.JPG

we covered his cage in forest moss, which did seem to lock in the moisture better than the paper bedding did. :) the smell is rather strong though, and since his cage sits in our living room and my mom suffers from migraines, it's not that ideal for her. she did say she tried getting him a bark substrate once, but said it seemed like he was poking his eyes with it? we've also heard people sometimes use sand, but we're afraid he might try to eat that.
is there a certain type of bark that is better for him, that he shouldn't accidentally poke his eyes with? does bark or coconut coir have as strong as a smell as the moss does?

we went to the store today and picked up a herb mix, which has a bunch of different types of romaine lettuce and also other greens in it. (my mom said he didn't like the spring mix, but i think she tried giving him that when we first brought him home. he probably wasn't used to eating whatever the pet store hadn't given him) as well as some watermelons, tomatoes and strawberries. we also picked up this little container of Flukers calcium powder, since i think pyramiding can be caused by a lack of calcium in his diet. it says its safe for reptiles, so..CtkwLl5.jpg
i tried to get a better picture of him from as far to one side of the cage as i could go haha. he was snuggled down in his bedding, snoozing away. the cage is a bit bigger, i couldn't capture it all in one photo
 

abclements

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Guess I got lucky lol I have a pretty good eye for things like that!

Ya that's the issue with humidifiers that run constantly... if you completely close off the enclosure with plexiglass, you will barely have to ever run the humidifier and it should maintain a really notice hunidity! Makes your electricity bill go down too since the CHE isn't on all the time! Any humidifier will work. If it is a hot water humidifier just make sure your tort can't be directly by the out spout.

I've never used forest moss so I don't know what odor you are talking about, but I use coco coir and it doesn't smell much. Plus, with a plexiglass top, you should not smell anything at all. Don't use sand, it causes compaction in sone torts.

Torts a creatures of habit, if the haven't eaten something in a while, they more than likely will shun it lol just gotta use a little tough love sometimes! The calcium powder sounds great! Just remember, a little goes a long way!

Last thing I noticed, the last picture of the enclosure makes it look really bare. Try to liven things up with some plants (real and fake) that he can use as hiding places and some actual hides that allow him to hide without having to bury himself.
 

Violettes

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it mostly smells like dirt to be honest haha. it doesn't smell "bad" it's just really strong! (all strong smells tend to bother her. even if a candle is too strong. :) ) i'm trying to get him more used to it by hand feeding him a bit. i figured we could mix it in with some of the regular lettuce we feed him and he'll eventually get used to it, and probably like it more than having the plain lettuce all the time. i also managed to find a few dandelions outside, so i gave him a few this morning and he seemed to like those. i'm not sure what all wild plants they can eat though, so i normally stick to clovers and dandelions.

are there any real plants people tend to use over others? i'm not sure of what kind of plants are out there to be honest, but i definitely know we could get some fake ones to mix in with real ones. i'd also like to give him a few more rocks maybe just to liven up the place haha. the next goal will be managing to keep the plants alive :)

i would like to get him some more hides, but it seems like he outgrows everything so fast! we've had so many different types of hides, sometimes we use things as simple as a cardboard box. i'd like to get something that would blend in better with the jungle-theme. he had a log once, but he was a baby back then. maybe i could find a bigger one :)
 

abclements

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This is totally off topic, but has she been tested for allergies? Especially food allergies? My mom had similar sensitivities and it turned out to be extensive food allergies.

Ya just keep mixing little by little... he'll learn to like it! Most typical lawn weeds are edible, so don't worry about that.

I use aloe plants in my enclosure. They're really hardy and don't need a whole lot of watering. I tried Christmas cactus but she ate that poor plant in a matter of days lol

For a hide, I bought a roll of chicken wire and a sheet of burlap, formed the chicken wire into a domey type thing, covered it woth the burlap and then covered it with dirt, and it fits in great! Super easy and super cheep! She only uses those hides typically. Then I bought a "ground cover" type fake plant that she loves to crawl under and use as a hide. I also have a rock cave that I made using rocks and hot glue, but she rarely uses that... anyways, there Are some ideas for you that are fairly inexpensive...
 

Violettes

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yes, she's allergic to quite a few things, including dust and pet dander/long fur (which is why a tortoise is a pretty good pet for her i think! ;)) but stronger smells such as perfume and nail polish will give her bad headaches. i think the dirt smell lessens over the next day, especially if the window is open. so its all good! we might switch him to some different bedding though. we went to the pet store and picked up the things we could afford. we got a coconut musk bedding to try it out, but we're going to use up the moss bricks we've got already. i'm pretty sure its a bark substrate, so i think it should be alright. i told her about the coconut coir but she was worried that since it looks sorta like sand he'd get it stuck in his shell. he likes to burrow into his bedding after all

we got him a uvb/uva strip light, and we also picked up a normal basking bulb and a CHE bulb. :) we picked up a plastic carpet runner and used that to cover the top of the cage. (we cut holes for the vents in the strip light and also for the one basking light) my mom said it seemed like having the one lamp clamped so far away from the cage that his cage wasn't warm enough. she also doesn't want to cut another hole for the second lamp because she thinks it would cause too much humidity to escape. (pictures soon!)
how far away can a lamp be from the bottom of the cage without the worry of the tortoise getting burnt? she had it clamped on the inside of the shelf, and our tortoise was sitting near it but i had her move it (for now maybe) as i was worried it was close enough to where he could get burnt
 

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