new sulcata owner

[anjelita]

Hey there! I'm new and glad to have found this site, I have a baby sulcata tortoise that will be arriving tomorrow and would like to make sure I have everything prepared properly.

He is going to be staying in a huge tank while I wait for my fiancé to build a turtle table.

This is what I have in the tank so far:
Heating pad for under the tank
Lighting
Coconut coil
Play sand
Thermometer
Water dish that's easy to climb in
Flat food dish
Hiding spot
Orchard hay for food
Cuttle bone that I broke into pieces and scattered throughout the tank (how big should the pieces be?)
I am also growing a mixture of sulcata tortoise food in organic soil (it's a flower mix type of thing that I ordered online)

I have a few questions:
I know that the hiding spot goes on the cool side of the tank, but does it go on the coil or sand?

Also, what side of the tank does the food/water dish go? The warm side? On the sand or coil?

Thanks so much!

 

[Maggie Cummings]

I am not understanding what the coil is? Don't use any under the tank heat mat, the heat should come from above. A new tortoise is not likely to eat hay. You should feed him greens like Spring Mix not hay. You need lights...read the threads and that will tell you how to set him up...

 

[chadk]

Welcome!!!

Read this:
http://www.sulcata-station.org/pdf/hatchfail.pdf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And some good threads here:

http://tortoiseforum.org/thread-13370.html

http://tortoiseforum.org/thread-13795.ht...ight=moist

I like hides on both sides. A warm humid hide and a cool no so humid hide. Both with diggable substrate inside. Water - i put it close to the edge where it is easy to get to for daily cleaning. Otherwise closer to the warm side is better.

You can cut the hay up in tiny bits and mix with the salad greens.

Get a temp gun or a good guage for measuring temps. I like the $12 accu-rite indoor\outdoor model that allows you to measure the basking spot temp with a probe, and then humidity and temp on the cool end where you place the main unit.

Oh, it it is COIR nor COIL. Go easy on the sand. Many of us prefer to skip the sand and use organic soil mixed with the coir.

Keep the substrate moist. Have your lamps on a timer (10 bucks at most stores). Cuttle bone size doesn't really matter. You can even take 2 peices and scrape them together over the salad to get some powder on it.

 

[anjelita]

Thanks so much for the tips and great articles to read!

I found out she is approx 5 months old.

Sorry - the coconut stuff I was talking about is actually coconut fiber (it came in a brick I had to mix with water).

I picked up the probe thermometer and it is awesome, and removed the heating pad I had under the tank - thank you!

The tank she's in is about 75% of the brick mix (cool spot - maintains about 70 degrees) and 25% play sand (basking spot - maintains about 85 degrees), I keep a uvb light on her throughout the day and have a night light that maintains the tank about 70 degrees overall at night. I can't seem to get the humidity any higher than 40. She pretty much keeps in her hidebox that is on the cool side of the tank (I got her the sphagnum moss). When I do take her out of her tank she is very active - I let her run around the living room supervised for exercise, it's still pretty cold out here.

The previous owner said she was eating kale, endives, bok choy and some cut up apple, sometimes a carrot. Is this a decent diet?

 

[rwfoss]

Anjelita,

WELCOME!

This is a great site with a lot of knowledgeable owners willing to give advise. Being fairly new to tortoises, with a sulcata as my first, I had to unlearn and rearrange things that I had read elsewhere. And I'm still learning the more I read.

A variety in diet is important. What I've done is get a couple of items and make enough meals for the coming 5-7 days. For example, I will get Spring Mix in the salad area of the grocery story and use some of that. I will then alternate between using fresh mustard greens and kale, and then dandelion weeds from the backyard. Sometimes I'll add parsley and sometimes some grated carrot. I make sure to cut these into smaller bites for the smaller torts, then mix them all together until well blended and put into a Tupperware container and into the fridge. Ever few days, I sprinkle a calcium powder onto the food.

With sulcatas, as I've learned, fruit is not a part of their diet. They don't process the natural sugars very well. They can be offered as a rare treat, because they do love fruit. But this is one of those things that I've read that was probably more "generalized" information, and not sulcata specific. I had read that a small portion of their diet should be fruit. Not so for sulcatas.

As for the enclosure, you will probably find that your tortoise (maybe as it gets older) will rearrange where you've put things. My year and a half old sulcata had a hide on both sides. She like one over the other, for some reason, but she moved it. It is now sitting in the middle of her enclosure - right inbetween the warm and cool side.

Any, keep reading and checking in. You'll love this site more and more!!

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Welcome!!!

Read this:
http://www.sulcata-station.org/pdf/hatchfail.pdf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And some good threads here:

http://tortoiseforum.org/thread-13370.html

http://tortoiseforum.org/thread-13795.ht...ight=moist

I like hides on both sides. A warm humid hide and a cool no so humid hide. Both with diggable substrate inside. Water - i put it close to the edge where it is easy to get to for daily cleaning. Otherwise closer to the warm side is better.

You can cut the hay up in tiny bits and mix with the salad greens.

Get a temp gun or a good guage for measuring temps. I like the $12 accu-rite indoor\outdoor model that allows you to measure the basking spot temp with a probe, and then humidity and temp on the cool end where you place the main unit.

Oh, it it is COIR nor COIL. Go easy on the sand. Many of us prefer to skip the sand and use organic soil mixed with the coir.

Keep the substrate moist. Have your lamps on a timer (10 bucks at most stores). Cuttle bone size doesn't really matter. You can even take 2 peices and scrape them together over the salad to get some powder on it.

None of those links worked for me...

 

[Tom]

All of the above advice is good. I don't disagree with any of it. However, you are moving in to the territory where you are going to start getting personal opinions and some of these may conflict with each other. None of them are necessarily right or wrong, just differences of opinion. Different people in different parts of the country house them differently. Both can have excellent set-ups and healthy tortoises even though they are doing things differently. You will have to figure out what works best for you. Different people are also at different points on the experience and learning curve too. This is not a slam against anybody. I, myself, know a lot more today than I did just a few months ago and I've been keeping sulcatas since the early 90's.

One thing I think we'll all agree on is ditch the sand. There is a risk of eye problems and impaction from it. Other things work better and don't have such a risk. The coco coir is good, but most of us mix it with something like soil, orchid bark or cypress mulch. Most of us will also agree that cypress mulch, all by itself, all over the enclosure is a good easy way to do it, IF cypress mulch is available where you are. Here's another suggestion, if not:
http://tortoiseforum.org/thread-13520.html

The easiest way to heat your tort is a single basking lamp over a flat rock on one end of the enclosure. Put the light on a 12-14 hour cycle on a timer and adjust the height to get the right basking temp. As long as your room temp is around 70 or higher day and night, that's all you will need. Me and lots of others here really like the T-Rex Active UV Heat bulbs for this. Gives you heat and necessary UV all in one.

For temps, I recommend you shoot for the following: Cool side, 70-80. Warm side 85-90. Basking SPOT 100-115. Night time temps 70 or above for young ones, older ones can tolerate it a little lower as long as they can get good and warm during the day.

Here's my opinion on diet. The best diet is fresh grass and a wide selection of weeds. Add a little cactus, flowers, and leaves from some plants and trees and you are there. I like roses, hibiscus and Mulberry leaves. AND this stuff is free. I save the grass hay for older, bigger ones. This assumes you have a safe source for all of these things and know what all your local weeds are. We have a section to help identify your weeds here. I use it frequently. If you can't get these things, then store bought greens are the next best thing. Just keep the variety high and mix in whatever else you can. Some people also like to use Mazuri tortoise chow. The people who use it seem to think its great. I'm currently giving it a try, but I still have my reservations.

Post a pic of your enclosure and we'll happily give you tips for improvement, IF we see anything. How big is your huge tank? If its glass you may want to cover the bottom six inches or so with something like a cut up paper bag, all the way around, to create a visual barrier. Tortoises don't understand the concept of glass and may constantly pace and stress themselves out trying to push against it all day.

By the way, WELCOME to the forum and congratulations on the new baby!