Indoor Leopard Enclosure?

[Tom]

The minimum temp is hard to say. There are a lot of factors. If its a sunny day, no wind and dry ground, I would say that its safe to put him out for a while at 15-18 C. A temp gun would be handy on these days so you could temp his actual carapace and make sure the the sun is keeping him warmer than ambient, as it should.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Nice!

 

[_simon_]

Nice!

Swapped him over late last night. Basking temp is 105F and ambient is 80F. Humidity at the moment is reading 73% but I gave the topsoil a good soak. I'll sort a humid hide out asap.

Because I need access to the side and back of the viv (telephone and electrical sockets) I intend putting heavy duty furniture wheels on the bottom when I buy the extension so that I can wheel the whole thing away from the wall if needed.

Opening the doors and feeling how warm it is makes me realise how rubbish his last enclosure was at retaining heat, not to mention humidity.

Excuse the mess.

 

[NudistApple]

I love it! Is that Succulent live?

 

[_simon_]

I cheated, it's artificial

I've sorted the humid hide out. I bought a natural grass hide designed for hamsters and the like and stuffed it full of damp moss.

 

[NudistApple]

Cool idea for the hide! My thoughts are;
1) Your tortoise may decide it is delicious one day,
2) Just watch for any molds to grown, hay is pretty prone to it.

I have silk plants in my terrarium too. I don't think my future tortoise will mind.

 

[_simon_]

Just an update, swapped the 150w ceramic for a 250w as it was struggling to keep the temps up at night. Humidity has levelled out in the 50%'s and my tortoise is living up to the name I gave him of "Zippy". I've not seen him so active in a long time, he's making short work of walking around his cube so I'll look into getting an extension very soon.

Thanks for all the help everyone. It's a shame I didn't realise things weren't right much sooner but here in the UK it seems the majority of people are very anti-vivarium when it comes to tortoises, at least his health doesn't seem to have been affected.

 

[_simon_]

Getting an extension for the viv on saturday, another 3'x3'x3' so he'll have 6'x3'x3'. If I move the room around there is the potential to make it 12'x3'x3'. Just not sure how long the 3' width will last him.

 

[NudistApple]

Lucky buddy! I'm sure he will love the extra space.