Is my enclosure big enough ?

fergusaur

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I recently built my 2 and half year old tortoise Hulu a new enclosure a week ago. It’s 5ft long and 3.5 ft wide. Is this big enough for a tortoise his age? He’s been scratching the walls way less than he did before but he’s still pacing around and trying to climb out and ignoring his food but I just assume this is him adjusting to his new enclosure, and him doing normal tortoise things as they like to pace around and stuff. I have two log hides for him to hide in and a digging area for him to bury himself in as needed. I also put a big rock in there for him to climb in. His enclosure temps have been at 75 for a majority of the day but it will increase to 76-77 degrees as the day goes on (I plan to get another low wattage che to boost ambient temps a bit higher since the enclosure is now bigger and is harder to heat up). His basking temps are 95-110 degrees (it increases throughout the day), and his uvb is a T5 reptisun 24 inch bulb with a reflector (hung about 17-18 inches high). Overall I just wanna get some advice to make sure I’m doing things alright and maybe get some tips as well for any improvements 🙂.
 

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Yvonne G

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Jury rig some sort of light stand, or chain from the ceiling or something for the light. You're losing all your heat. The light needs to hang straight down. That way the heat goes own to the floor and gives him a place to get concentrated rays.
 

fergusaur

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Should be fine for awhile. Another year or two he will need at least a 4x8 hopefully larger and an outside enclosure.

Should be fine for awhile. Another year or two he will need at least a 4x8 hopefully larger and an outside enclosure.

Jury rig some sort of light stand, or chain from the ceiling or something for the light. You're losing all your heat. The light needs to hang straight down. That way the heat goes own to the floor and gives him a place to get concentrated rays.
Oh he has a basking bulb that’s pointed straight downward on one corner of the enclosure, I just didn’t get that in the photo sorry. The lamp in the photo is his ceramic heat emitter
 

Yvonne G

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Oh he has a basking bulb that’s pointed straight downward on one corner of the enclosure, I just didn’t get that in the photo sorry. The lamp in the photo is his ceramic heat emitter
Same reply. Most of the heat from the emitter is escaping from the enclosure before it reaches inside the enclosure.
 

TammyJ

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What's the humidity level? The enclosure looks bare and dry.
 

The_Four_Toed_Edward

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t he’s still pacing around and trying to climb out and ignoring his food but I just assume this is him adjusting to his new enclosure, and him doing normal tortoise things as they like to pace around and stuff.
Yeah, tortoises don't really like change. It took two weeks for mine to get used to his new enclosure. Does he have any UVB in his enclosure?
 

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