Halting Pyramiding

[Seth Tyler]

Hey guys,

So I'm slowly but surely figuring out how to best care for my now 1 year old tortoise. I've increased his containment to a 50 gal enclosure. I've noticed that he has attained decent pyramiding in the last few months (he's also grown double his size in around 3-4 months). The pyramiding doesn't look severe, and I'm not super worried about it. I soak him once a week, and have been reading that now that he has started pyramiding you can only stop the process not reverse it. I'm glad I can stop the issue at hand, but I need some tips and suggestions as to what I need to do to help my little guy.

He is in a 50 gallon enclosure, Exo-terra glass sides with open vents out the top. I have 1/2 of the top closed off by glass coverings and the other half has the UVB and day and night heat lamps. He has a heat pad as well as a little hide log that is open on both ends. I have orchid bark from zoo med that I have been using for around 5 months now, (after I discovered sand is a terrible substrate for them). What exactly should I do to lower his pyramid with this situation? Let me know any tips you may have for me!

Things I've had in mind so far:

soak him more often (don't know a good duration of time per soak though)
enclose the other half of the enclosure (Don't know where to place lighting if I do this)
change his log hideout to something more enclosed
spray the substrate to up the humidity (not sure how often or if I should do it only in his hideout or entire enclosure)

He has plenty of clean drinking water which he uses for the occasional soak as well, I feed him Mazuri pellets and collard greens. maybe a slight change in diet may help as well.

Regardless, any tips you may have for me would be of great help, let me know guys, be my tortoise's and my savior!

-Seth

 

[wellington]

Raise humidity and soak daily until around the age of two, then you can cut back to 3-4 times a week soakings.

 

[Dizisdalife]

Seth, you are on the right track. Don't be discouraged if results aren't immediate. They seldom are with tortoises. Stopping pyramiding is much more difficult than simply preventing it. You will have to be more diligent in your efforts, but the results will come.

Some things to consider:
a) Make a humid hide. A plastic tote box work well.
b) Wet down the substrate. It should be damp, but not a swamp. You might need to change your substrate to a coir/orchid bark mix to get the humidity up.
c) Make a hood for your tank. Something that lets you cover the light and heat source. Some people have used a shower curtain as a tent for this purpose.
d) Get a digital hygrometer/thermometer, if you don't have one. They seem to function much better than the analog ones.
e) Get a thermostat to control the ambient/night heat. Let it keep the temperature where it needs to be.
f) Use a flood light for a basking spot so that it doesn't create hot spots on the tortoise carapace.
g) And yes, get more variety in the diet

 

[Seth Tyler]

Seth, you are on the right track. Don't be discouraged if results aren't immediate. They seldom are with tortoises. Stopping pyramiding is much more difficult than simply preventing it. You will have to be more diligent in your efforts, but the results will come.

Some things to consider:
a) Make a humid hide. A plastic tote box work well.
b) Wet down the substrate. It should be damp, but not a swamp. You might need to change your substrate to a coir/orchid bark mix to get the humidity up.
c) Make a hood for your tank. Something that lets you cover the light and heat source. Some people have used a shower curtain as a tent for this purpose.
d) Get a digital hygrometer/thermometer, if you don't have one. They seem to function much better than the analog ones.
e) Get a thermostat to control the ambient/night heat. Let it keep the temperature where it needs to be.
f) Use a flood light for a basking spot so that it doesn't create hot spots on the tortoise carapace.
g) And yes, get more variety in the diet

Thanks Wellington, this makes me feel a lot better about increasing the efficiency of the environment Theo lives in that'll help with shell growth and development. I do have a digital thermometer and humidity reader, what should the humidity be roughly for my one year old tortoise? And should the humidity percent change as he gets older? Also am I soaking him enough? Or should I be doing it more? Other than those questions, your input has been very helpful!

 

[Speedy-1]

I soaked Speedy an hour every day until he was 2 years old and he has no pyramiding !

 

[Dizisdalife]

Hydration and humidity is paramount to preventing or stopping pyramiding. As Speedy-1 has shown, daily soaking in warm water is beneficial. Maintaining the humidity at 85% in the enclosure mitigates the drying effect that the heat lamps have. You also need to keep the temperature above 80°F at all times. Since pyramiding is caused by growth in too dry of conditions, I don't believe that there is an age where humidity will not be important. Unless you live in the tropics you are going to need artificial heat to warm a sulcata, at least some of the time. The artificial heat has a drying effect on the carapace and the result will most likely be some pyramiding.

Lots of questions about young sulcata are answered in this thread: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.78361/
And there is more relevant information in this thread: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread...d-babies-discussion-thread.18448/#post-163629

And then there is lots more to read and adapt to your situation.

 

[Seth Tyler]

I soaked Speedy an hour every day until he was 2 years old and he has no pyramiding !

View attachment 194077

thanks for the info Speedy! I will start soaking him more and time him for around 30 minutes to start and slowly bump it to an hour in time!

 

[Seth Tyler]

Hydration and humidity is paramount to preventing or stopping pyramiding. As Speedy-1 has shown, daily soaking in warm water is beneficial. Maintaining the humidity at 85% in the enclosure mitigates the drying effect that the heat lamps have. You also need to keep the temperature above 80°F at all times. Since pyramiding is caused by growth in too dry of conditions, I don't believe that there is an age where humidity will not be important. Unless you live in the tropics you are going to need artificial heat to warm a sulcata, at least some of the time. The artificial heat has a drying effect on the carapace and the result will most likely be some pyramiding.

Lots of questions about young sulcata are answered in this thread: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.78361/
And there is more relevant information in this thread: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread...d-babies-discussion-thread.18448/#post-163629

And then there is lots more to read and adapt to your situation.

Thanks a bunch Dizisdalife! super informative, I will start looking into building him a different enclosure with my spare time, I just want to make sure he has it made in terms of environment and space!

 

[Stuart S.]

You've come to the right place Seth, these folks got me going on the right track with our baby sulcata, very thankful I came across this forum!

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

super informative, I will start looking into building him a different enclosure I just want to make sure he has it made in terms of environment and space!

Greetings Seth,
To start with go to the specie specific section here on the forum, go to the sulcata tortoises section, and from there read the sulcata postings as well as threads made by our member, "Tom". Tom is good people and knows his stuff regarding sulcata tortoises, every age from hatchling to way old adults
Hope this helps out Seth,

Cowboy Ken