Help with heating solution please

Ariel Perez

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Oct 21, 2015
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Palmdale, CA
Hello everyone, I currently have a sulcata tortoise setup in a 40 gallon tank and just installed a fogger to control humidity levels. The humidity has improved a lot, so much that now I feel that temperatures have dropped a bit. My warm side is at about 88 degrees and my cool side at about 80 degrees. Humidity levels are between 70 to 80 percent. I have a zoomed reptisun 10.0 flourescent bulb for uvb. I use a 65 watt flood lamp for basking along with a CHE set on a thermostat switch which would suffice in the past. With the temperatures dropping and now the added humidity, I’m considering getting a zoomed power sun 100 watt bulb in order to increase temperatures. My worry is that maybe this will provide too much UVB. The zoomed reptisun bulb sits on a screen so I lose some uvb there already. Any idea if it’s too much overkill on UVB ? I love in Palmdale, CA at the moment and it’s getting to about 45 degrees at night. Any ideas/opinions would help a lot thank you !
 

wellington

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The only temp that needs improving is the basking temp. It needs to be 95-100. Just lower the bulb if you can. The fogger should be a warm most fogger not a cool mist.
How old/big is your tort? You can't really provide too much UVB, specially with bulbs.
 

Ariel Perez

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Oct 21, 2015
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Palmdale, CA
My tortoise is a year old and about 6 inches by measuring the carapace. Unfortunately, because of the structure I’m unable to lower the bulb. Figure I could use the 100 watt mvb during the winter time ? I don’t have a meter to measure uvb but it should be ok right ? Considering they will be indoors mostly during winter, I thought the Mvb would be great
 

Tom

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You have a 6 inch sulcata tortoise in a 40 gallon tank? This is not good at all. You need something much bigger immediately.

You absolutely can have too much UV from bulbs. The only way to know if your bulbs are giving off too much UV, or not enough, is to put a meter under them and test them. The regular ZooMed 10.0 tubes put out very little UV. If it is sitting on the top of an 18" tall tank and going through a screen, you are probably getting zero UV at the tortoise's level. MVBs are okay, but they stop producing UV at about three months, and they dry the carapace out a lot which contributes to pyramiding.

So what to do? Your bulb should be suspended from over head, and there should be a screen over the tank. If this is the case then there should be no reason why you can't lower your bulb. If you still can't (Or don't want to…) lower your bulb, then get a larger wattage bulb, but be aware that it will dry out the environment and your tortoises carapace more. This is the vicious cycle of the open topped enclosure. It doesn't work very well. Your tortoise needs a large closed chamber.
 

Ariel Perez

Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2015
Messages
39
Location (City and/or State)
Palmdale, CA
You have a 6 inch sulcata tortoise in a 40 gallon tank? This is not good at all. You need something much bigger immediately.

You absolutely can have too much UV from bulbs. The only way to know if your bulbs are giving off too much UV, or not enough, is to put a meter under them and test them. The regular ZooMed 10.0 tubes put out very little UV. If it is sitting on the top of an 18" tall tank and going through a screen, you are probably getting zero UV at the tortoise's level. MVBs are okay, but they stop producing UV at about three months, and they dry the carapace out a lot which contributes to pyramiding.

So what to do? Your bulb should be suspended from over head, and there should be a screen over the tank. If this is the case then there should be no reason why you can't lower your bulb. If you still can't (Or don't want to…) lower your bulb, then get a larger wattage bulb, but be aware that it will dry out the environment and your tortoises carapace more. This is the vicious cycle of the open topped enclosure. It doesn't work very well. Your tortoise needs a large closed chamber.

What size chamber do you have your 6 inch sulcatas in @Tom ?
 
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