Indoor enclosure

[Anyfoot]

Just thought I'd show you what lighting I'm going to use in my enclosure. I've just received them today.
I need the blue spectrum for vegetation to grow, and the red spectrum for plants to flower and fruit. I also need the day light look for torts.
Soooooo, I've opted for LED's. These don't give off any heat at all. Each LED light is only 10watt, I've got 10 units(about £10 each), these 10 lights will cost me about £60 per year on for 12hrs a day to run. They are IP65 grade, which means they are fully water proof. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is that they may be too bright. If so I can always replace the glass covers with frosted glass.
Can anyone explain to me why those coil bulbs burn torts eyes?

Anyway the lights I've bought all have red/blue LED's, 6 red and 3 blue. Im going to replace 5 out of the 10 units with natural day light LED's to give me HOPEFULLY a good average lighting system to cover all life in my enclosure. On top of this I have natural window light and I will also have 2 UVB's on for 4hrs a day.


Below are some photo's of the unit.






Unit in pieces and the new LED's
You can see 3 Blue LED's lights down the centre and 3 red LED lights down either side of the Blues.

And here you can see the replacement day light LED chip.

 

[Prairie Mom]

Great! I haven't used the LEDs before but more and more people are trying these out. I've used grow lights and "daylight" fluorescent strips. They're pretty bright too, you can eventually diffuse the lights with vines and other cool plants. You're so creative, I'm sure you'll come up with something fabulous to make us "ooooh" and "awwwhhhhh"

 

[Anyfoot]

Today's job was to remove the rocks, lay down a double skin of weed blocker then replace rocks, then we filled it in with soil that I've had piled up in the garden for about a yr. It's was soden and clumpy due to our rainfall. When it dries a bit I'll level it off more. Plenty of worms and weeds in this soil, so god knows what will pop up in time.
I've used 2" diameter bamboo as the barrier. Dont know how long that will last in the soil. Torts won't be able to knock them over and to stop them digging them out I'm thinking I should put a line of flat rocks down on the inside of bamboo. Then grow small rock creeping plants between bamboo to finish it of. I made one bamboo cane go to the ceiling. I'll grow something up that. I'll also have plants growing over and out of the wall. I'm going to twine some horizontal bamboo across the gap above the window. Hopefully this is an area where the torts will dig down to lay eggs. If not I'll cheet and move some to this area. So I need to get the ground temps correct here. Looks a bit bare at the moment without any foliage. I'll also get plants trained to grow around the window to make it less inconspicuous.

 

[Yvonne G]

Just thought I'd show you what lighting I'm going to use in my enclosure. I've just received them today.
I need the blue spectrum for vegetation to grow, and the red spectrum for plants to flower and fruit. I also need the day light look for torts.
Soooooo, I've opted for LED's. These don't give off any heat at all. Each LED light is only 10watt, I've got 10 units(about £10 each), these 10 lights will cost me about £60 per year on for 12hrs a day to run. They are IP65 grade, which means they are fully water proof. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is that they may be too bright. If so I can always replace the glass covers with frosted glass.
Can anyone explain to me why those coil bulbs burn torts eyes?

Anyway the lights I've bought all have red/blue LED's, 6 red and 3 blue. Im going to replace 5 out of the 10 units with natural day light LED's to give me HOPEFULLY a good average lighting system to cover all life in my enclosure. On top of this I have natural window light and I will also have 2 UVB's on for 4hrs a day.


Below are some photo's of the unit.



View attachment 159070


Unit in pieces and the new LED'sView attachment 159071
You can see 3 Blue LED's lights down the centre and 3 red LED lights down either side of the Blues.
View attachment 159072
And here you can see the replacement day light LED chip.

View attachment 159074

Maybe you can wire them up on different circuits so you can turn a couple on individually. That way if it's too bright, you can turn a bank or two off.

 

[Anyfoot]

Maybe you can wire them up on different circuits so you can turn a couple on individually. That way if it's too bright, you can turn a bank or two off.

Great minds think alike. Yeah in 2 banks. Also I thought this way if all lights are not too bright at night I can turn 1 bank off 1 hour before the other bank, hoping that eventually the torts register this and head to bed when 1st bank goes off.

 

[hingeback]

Today's job was to remove the rocks, lay down a double skin of weed blocker then replace rocks, then we filled it in with soil that I've had piled up in the garden for about a yr. It's was soden and clumpy due to our rainfall. When it dries a bit I'll level it off more. Plenty of worms and weeds in this soil, so god knows what will pop up in time.
I've used 2" diameter bamboo as the barrier. Dont know how long that will last in the soil. Torts won't be able to knock them over and to stop them digging them out I'm thinking I should put a line of flat rocks down on the inside of bamboo. Then grow small rock creeping plants between bamboo to finish it of. I made one bamboo cane go to the ceiling. I'll grow something up that. I'll also have plants growing over and out of the wall. I'm going to twine some horizontal bamboo across the gap above the window. Hopefully this is an area where the torts will dig down to lay eggs. If not I'll cheet and move some to this area. So I need to get the ground temps correct here. Looks a bit bare at the moment without any foliage. I'll also get plants trained to grow around the window to make it less inconspicuous.
View attachment 159122 View attachment 159123 View attachment 159124 View attachment 159125 View attachment 159126 View attachment 159127
View attachment 159129

How deep is the substrate for them to dig and lay eggs?

 

[Anyfoot]

How deep is the substrate for them to dig and lay eggs?

12"/30cm.

 

[Anyfoot]

Merry Christmas all.

Now got the ramp done up to top tier.
Few things I still need to do on this part.
I need to mill some channels in the ramp for grip, its quite steep but will be OK, ive noticed that reds love climbing to high points.
Got to secure the gap at the top of the ramp and think I'll fasten a planter down on the windowsill. I'm also thinking I should coat all the twine with something clear to protect them.
The base at the bottom of the ramp is about 16" high, the substrate here will be 12" deep, so I'll landscape a taper from the base to the substrate, making it safe.
There is s cave/hide under the base too, trying to create as much space and areas to keep them entertained.
I calculated I'm going to need about 8ton of soil in here. Not looking forward to that day. Lol.
I'm not happy with the bamboo just stuck up on left hand side above the caves, any ideas to create a different barrier here anybody please. I thought maybe some Terracotta tubes and the odd rock instead, I could grow stuff out of the tubes. Maybe even one of the Terracota pots you get with holes in the side to grow strawberries in and a broken pot on its side with a plant in it. It doesn't look right at the moment. Need to mix the look up a bit, and bamboo in the soil will only give me about 2yrs of life.
The ramp BTW is made of railway sleepers that are 100% naturally eco treated. I have about 15 sleepers spare from doing the front garden.
A couple of other ideas I had on space saving is, I have 2 oak barrels in the garage (20 & 55 gallon)from my wine and cider making days, I was thinking I could make hides out of them but also somewhere for us to sit on and chill out. Will the oak be OK near torts.
Also I want to grow fig,grape and passion fruit in here. Fig and grape I will grow up the walls on plastic mesh. For the passion fruit I was thinking of hanging from the ceiling some plastic mesh so I can train it to grow up that in the middle of the enclosure. Thoughts!

 

[hingeback]

It's beautiful... Maybe at the cave barrier you can use another piece of rock? A big piece placed horizontally above the two tall ones then secure it. My second Idea is coconut husk wall or something and add money plants on top or use mesh for vines. My third Idea is adding a curved shelter from the top of the glass/plastic sheet to the original wall. Something like this:

 

[Anyfoot]

It's beautiful... Maybe at the cave barrier you can use another piece of rock? A big piece placed horizontally above the two tall ones then secure it. My second Idea is coconut husk wall or something and add money plants on top or use mesh for vines. My third Idea is adding a curved shelter from the top of the glass/plastic sheet to the original wall. Something like this:
View attachment 159740

Thanks. I meant the bamboo on the far left. I should have re posted this photo.
I think I'm going to put a rock In the gap like you suggested though.

 

[hingeback]

No logical ideas yet, but your enclosure just make me keep on thinking of rocky roofs...(like another cave with a very big opening). Merry Christmas by the way

 

[Wherethetortiroam]

Lol I've found too that Torti love stairs.

 

[Anyfoot]

Now the chaos of Xmas has subsided I'm starting to put my LED lights up.
These light give of zero heat, hence the very low wattage. All 10 lights are a total of 100watt.
50% daylight LED
17% blue spectrum LED
33% red spectrum LED.
Plus there will be daylight through windows and 2 x 160watt UVB lights for 4 hrs/day.

 

[Momof4]

This is so awesome!!!
I can't wait for it to be up and running with your torts in there!!
Probably not as much as you do!

 

[Pearly]

What a fantastic project!!!!! I have really enjoyed all the visuals. If I had a handy bone in me I't try to emulate at least some parts of it but I don't so our babies stay in their warm humid tank until they outgrow it, and once grown move out to the garden full time at which point their Mom (my daughter) will have saved enough $$$ to pay someone to build nice heated house for them. But you over here, have done very impressive work so far

 

[Anyfoot]

What a fantastic project!!!!! I have really enjoyed all the visuals. If I had a handy bone in me I't try to emulate at least some parts of it but I don't so our babies stay in their warm humid tank until they outgrow it, and once grown move out to the garden full time at which point their Mom (my daughter) will have saved enough $$$ to pay someone to build nice heated house for them. But you over here, have done very impressive work so far

You could do something like this on a smaller scale in a shed. I intend to for my hingebacks at a later date.

 

[Anyfoot]

Mmmm. Does this look like too much red light on left hand side. I can change and add more daylight LED's. It's pitch black outside now, so there is no light coming in through windows.

 

[hingeback]

Mmmm. Does this look like too much red light on left hand side. I can change and add more daylight LED's. It's pitch black outside now, so there is no light coming in through windows.
View attachment 160324

Wow, I feel that lighting goes quite well with the theme. Is it bright during daytime and do you want the nighttime to be nighttime for them(not with the daylight led) so that it is more natural?

 

[Anyfoot]

Wow, I feel that lighting goes quite well with the theme. Is it bright during daytime and do you want the nighttime to be nighttime for them(not with the daylight led) so that it is more natural?

These lights will be from 7am to 8pm.

 

[Anyfoot]

Worked on the pond area today.
It should end up 3" to 3.5" deep at its deepest point. So if any torts get flipped in there they can't drown.
When it's all set I will sand a part of the lip to create a wier into a filter system. I may just smooth it all out with sander too.