ANOTHER Night Box Thread...

Yvonne G

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I think he mentioned someplace that he uses a thinner plywood because the thick stuff makes the box too heavy. The rigid foam insulation does the job just fine with the thin plywood.
 
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dozers butler

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Tom , just another question for you. im in the process of building my night box for dozer , and im curious, the box im building is a 4x4x2 do you recommend the oil heater for this size box or the , heat pad radiant heat panel. also if you could give a list of electrics it would help me to try to round all the stuff up for the box. thanks a bunch. I appreciate your time .
 

Tom

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Tom , just another question for you. im in the process of building my night box for dozer , and im curious, the box im building is a 4x4x2 do you recommend the oil heater for this size box or the , heat pad radiant heat panel. also if you could give a list of electrics it would help me to try to round all the stuff up for the box. thanks a bunch. I appreciate your time .

Oil heaters take up a fair amount of floor space once you close them in. This can work for some situations, but for a large sulcata, I prefer to leave the floor space open.

For electrics in a 4x4' box I would use:
1. A short, heavy gauge, extension cord to bring the power inside the box.
2. A thermostat;
3. An 18x28" Kane heat mat.
4. A 12x21 radiant heat panel from Reptile Basics.

Post one of this thread shows a pic of all this and how I install it.
 

dozers butler

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Tom again much thanks to you my friend. I hope you are getting ready for a very merry christmas
 

Tom

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Tom again much thanks to you my friend. I hope you are getting ready for a very merry christmas

You are very welcome and thanks for the Christmas wishes too. Right back at ya!

We'd all love to see pics when you are done. Everyone figures out little details differently and we all want to learn.
 

dozers butler

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You are very welcome and thanks for the Christmas wishes too. Right back at ya!

We'd all love to see pics when you are done. Everyone figures out little details differently and we all want to learn.
 

dozers butler

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Here's a pic of dozer hanging in the sun while I work today. I used it for my avitar. I will show pics when I'm done for sure.
 

Markw84

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Just my two cents worth...

Although I joined this forum a few years ago and have loved and used countless ideas - especially in Tom and Dean's threads, I have only now decided to post a few things. I have hatched out a few hundred tortoises and over a thousand turtles in the past 30 years. How great would it to have been to have a resource like this back when I started!!

I have been building tortoise houses for over 30 years now, and would personally recommend being sure to use exterior grade or even marine grade plywood as it will last much longer outside and also cuts better with most voids filled and takes paint better.

I have now transitioned to a block house, stuccoed, and roofed, for my permanent tortoise house. When I moved a year an a half ago I built an elaborate tortoise and aquatic turtle "resort". The tortoise house is the picture for my profile. My 10,000 gal turtle pond enclosure also features a sunken patio with 5 6 foot wide windows looking into the pond... but perhaps that should be a separate post showing off my "Resort".
 

dozers butler

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Tom hate to bother you again but ive been trying to identify your thermostat so i can get one. ive been monitoring dozers temps and turnign things on and off manually til i can find the right thermostat. im running into walls on this simple item . if you could give me a link or point me in the right direction id much appreciate it . thanks again. also what do you set for minimum and max temps, and humidity. thanks again. Anthony.
 

Tom

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Tom hate to bother you again but ive been trying to identify your thermostat so i can get one. ive been monitoring dozers temps and turnign things on and off manually til i can find the right thermostat. im running into walls on this simple item . if you could give me a link or point me in the right direction id much appreciate it . thanks again. also what do you set for minimum and max temps, and humidity. thanks again. Anthony.

I can't do a link from here but I have been using the Zila 1000 W thermostat from LLL reptiles. Also, at the recommendation of many forum members here, I have recently tried the Hydro farm jumpstart thermo stat. So far that one has been working perfectly for me too. I am also using some more expensive type thermostats from reptile basics.com, but so far I see no difference in performance or longevity.

A quick Internet search should show you multiple places to buy either of the first two thermostats I mentioned.
 

AZtortMom

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Excellent! Thank you Tom! This is my next project:)
 

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*Raises hand* How big did you make the door for your Sully?
 

Yvonne G

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***Yvonne hides behind her hand so no one notices she's going off topic*** I made my Aldabran shed door 3' wide and there's not too much room on either side of the tortoise when he goes through.
 

AZtortMom

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What are your recommendations for the AZ heat?
 

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*Raises hand* How big did you make the door for your Sully?

I make the doors 16" tall and 26" wide, so I don't have to make them twice. This should accommodate even very large older males. If you have one of those rare 250 pound 20 year old Sudan males, well, you better make it bigger. The vast majority of pet sulcatas will easily fit through 16x26".
 

Tom

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What are your recommendations for the AZ heat?

Unless you want to run misters and sprinklers all day with doubled up shade cloth over the entire yard all summer long, then underground is the ONLY way to go. Here are some examples of how I have done it, but there are many ways to skin this cat.

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/daisys-new-enclosure.28662/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/semi-underground-russian-box.98590/#post-922226
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/sulcata-burrows.50846/

Phoenix heat can be deadly to a tortoise that is forced to remain above ground. Even in the shade, if its 110+, then can die. They cannot cool down when its that hot. Then need to be able to get somewhere cooler. Underground is cooler. As you will see in that last thread, I let mine live underground in summer, and then I block them out of their burrow in fall and make them sleep in the heated night boxes for winter.
 

alex_ornelas

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Have you ever had a problem with a tortoise burning themselves on the mat? what are the pros to putting the mat on the floor rather than the side of the box?
 

Cheryl Hills

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I did it again. :)
And I'm going to keep doing it too! :D

Here is the latest night box. Its similar to the others, but I wanted to show more of the electrics involved and how I use them. I made this one for my two returning Gpp females. I gave these two girls to a friend in 2010 and he raised them. They both turned out to be female, while most of mine are male. He offered to give them back to me in the hopes of producing some babies in the future. They will live alone for a couple of months for quarantine and fecal exam purposes, but then they will join the other girls.

Here we go...

Here is the almost finished box showing the yet uncovered insulation inside the walls.
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Here is the assortment of equipment going into this box:
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The heat mat and radiant heat panel have been mounted here, as has the shoe box that will hold all the excess wires.
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Here you can see all the cords and the thermostat all hooked up and stuffed into the shoe box. You can also see my thermostat probe hanging on the wall on the "cool" side. Notice the "drip loops" on the cord coming in to the box and inside the box. More on that later.
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Close up of the shoe box:
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See how nice it looks with the cords all contained? :) Notice that drip loop again...
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A wider view of the whole thing. In this one you can see my GFI circuit that I'm plugged into:
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Here is that "drip loop" that I keep talking about. I learned this back in my early aquarium days. You see, water runs downhill. Amazing right?! In the event of an earthquake or other aquarium splashes, the idea is that if you have a "loop" so that your cords always run downhill first and then uphill into your outlets, water will not be guided into your outlet. Instead it will come to the bottom of the loop and drip down to the ground harmlessly. I did one outside this new tortoise box and inside, just to be safe.
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Here it is open for business.
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In my excitement I forgot to get pics of the new inhabitants. I'll get some pics and post those later.
Would something like this be useful for Russian torts? I know they like to dig but could it work?
 
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