Introducing Stu & request for advice for us first time tortoise owners

janec727

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Aug 12, 2019
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Hello and allow me to introduce Stu, the Marginated tortoise hatchling. We welcomed into our (new) home in New Jersey 2 days ago. He is a little over 1 month old.

As I noted in the topic title of this post, my fiancé and I are first time tortoise owners. I am very thankful to have found this forum months ago, as it helped me understand if we can or should be tortoise owners capable of taking care of one properly. So thank you everyone for giving us the confidence to act on this “tortoise dream” we had since we bought our first home together in March.

As such, the main purpose of this introduction is to hear thoughts and feedback from the community here, as the majority of you all are obviously more experienced tortoise owners compared to us and our whopping 48 hours thus far :)

Attached/below are pictures of Stu’s baby enclosure. We used this forum as our primary source of information when planning our set up for Stu, but now that he’s here I still wonder if there’s anything we could and should be doing better.

Below are further details I know you all love ;)

— Temps —
Warm side: 81 degrees Fahrenheit
Cool side: 78 degrees Fahrenheit
Basking spot: 97 degrees Fahrenheit
Night: ~ 73 degrees F the last 2 nights

— Lights —
UVA: Aomryom 100W Basking Spot Heat Lamp Bulb UVA Soft White Light Glass Heat Bulbs for Reptiles & Amphibians

UVB: Zoo Med 26396 Reptisun 15W 10.0 T5-Ho Uvb Fluorescent Lamp, 12"

** I do have some concerns with this uvb light - is it too small? Also, the fixture it is installed in has a blue-ish reflective hood, so it makes the light give off a blue tint. I know colored lights are usually not recommended, so I’m wondering if this needs to be changed.

— Substrate & Humidity —
We started off only using coconut coir. But I noticed over these past 2 days, Stu kept his eyes closed most of the time, except when I would give him his daily soak (and he’d wash the coir off his face). The coco coir also appeared to dry out on the surface quite quickly, despite the enclosure consistently maintaining 85%-89% humidity. So today (and shown in the pics below) I mixed in with the coir a little bit of clean top soil, and some cypress mulch on the warm side of his enclosure (as a smaller test area).

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Stu’s home is a 2’x3’ raised “greenhouse” I lined with pond liner. When Stu outgrows this set up, I plan to move this to our back deck to use as an actual mini-greenhouse to grow plants to be used in Stu’s future enclosures. And when Stu is big enough, he will be living outside in the vegetable garden that is in our new home’s backyard (around 600 sq ft). It was after a lot of research and careful observation of this new vegetable garden that we decided we could in fact be tortoise owners.

Last but not least, here are some pics of Stu, The teSTUdo Wonder Tortoise, who loves eating greens and appears to enjoy his water temp the most when it gets to 95 degrees:

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janec727

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New Jersey
It appears uploading photos in “original” rather than “optimized” was the way to go when posting via mobile. “Live and Learn” is the theme here
 

Blackdog1714

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The only thing I would suggest is that you keep an eye on your camera. I have a Wyze on my front door for the tilt and pan feature, but it loves to reset itself at random giving me a view of my wall
 

Ray--Opo

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Welcome to you and Stu! I have a sulcata and had good luck with coco coir with 100% cypress mulch. Look at the cypress mulch bag and make sure it says 100% not a mix with other forest products. I had 3 in coco coir with 2 in of cypress mulch on top. Many members use repti bark in place of cypress.
Not sure if Marginated torts have problems with shell rot. Sulcata's don't so instead of spraying water I just poured warm water in.
Nice enclosure and Stu is a beauty!
 

janec727

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New Jersey
The only thing I would suggest is that you keep an eye on your camera. I have a Wyze on my front door for the tilt and pan feature, but it loves to reset itself at random giving me a view of my wall

Ha! That’s useful, gotta make sure that super small part of the wall is safe :)
 

janec727

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Location (City and/or State)
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Welcome to you and Stu! I have a sulcata and had good luck with coco coir with 100% cypress mulch. Look at the cypress mulch bag and make sure it says 100% not a mix with other forest products. I had 3 in coco coir with 2 in of cypress mulch on top. Many members use repti bark in place of cypress.
Not sure if Marginated torts have problems with shell rot. Sulcata's don't so instead of spraying water I just poured warm water in.
Nice enclosure and Stu is a beauty!

That’s great advice - I bought the cypress mulch in an act of desperation at a local petsmart because I felt Stu was not too happy with the 100% coco coir as his substrate. I’ll be sure to order 100% cypress mulch on amazon to see how Stu feels about it. He definitely enjoyed the new mix of substrate but still had the same woke-up-with-his-eyes-closed-until-he-got-soaked issue this AM as well. But I felt he was much more active waking around and reply burrowing himself as soon as I started mixing in the two additional substrates.

I did happen to also have the repti bark, so I’ll make a test area with that in his enclosure, too. Appreciate the advice!
 

Ray--Opo

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That’s great advice - I bought the cypress mulch in an act of desperation at a local petsmart because I felt Stu was not too happy with the 100% coco coir as his substrate. I’ll be sure to order 100% cypress mulch on amazon to see how Stu feels about it. He definitely enjoyed the new mix of substrate but still had the same woke-up-with-his-eyes-closed-until-he-got-soaked issue this AM as well. But I felt he was much more active waking around and reply burrowing himself as soon as I started mixing in the two additional substrates.

I did happen to also have the repti bark, so I’ll make a test area with that in his enclosure, too. Appreciate the advice!
You can look for the cypress at landscaping stores or home depot and Lowe's. The home depot and Lowe's quit selling 100% in my area. It has forest products in it now.
I have Opo outside fulltime so I don't need the mulch now.
 

TammyJ

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Welcome to you and your beautiful little tortoise! Looks like he is going to be very comfortable with you!
 

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