New tortoise table (picture heavy!)

theresal

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2011
Messages
173
Location (City and/or State)
Terrytown,LA
I love that the trays can be exchanged easily. This was a great idea! I will definitely think about incorporating it into the way I keep hatchlings since all my adults live outdoors.
 

lynnedit

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Messages
5,730
Location (City and/or State)
Southwest Washington
It is a beautiful set up. Very inventive and also functional/easy to take care of; so important in the day to day maintenance of tortoises or turtles.
 

julietteq

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
267
Location (City and/or State)
Amsterdam. Netherlands
oliviaTORTOISE said:
Just fantastic! I want that! It it hard to maintain?

Hello, thank you for your compliment. The table is very easy to maintain. The only thing I do is water the plants and tray in the morning and in the evening when the lights go off.


milkandsam said:
So, complete newbie question... How do you grow the plants when they are not in the table? Do you have a special light to nurture the plants?
Also, very excited to see how this turns out... I might be replicating this idea soon!

Hello, I grow the grass and weeds in seedtrays from seeds I buy at the Carolina petsupply. I do wait putting the seedtrays in the table untill all the seeds have sprouted and have had some time to grow. I have all the seedtrays in my bedroom in a seedrack in front of the window. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NCTGQE/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

Since I use full spectrum lights in my tortoise table the plants/grass and weeds benefit from the lights on the table as well I believe. The tortoises have "favorite" spots, where they will wear down ths grass faster then in other places, so each day I replace 1 seedtray with once from the growrack in my bedroom and I shuffle the other 3 around on the table.

Please share your pictures and ideas on this forum if you decide to use this approach as well and keep us posed on the results.

Juliette


Team Gomberg said:
I like that it is fully planted. It's better than the traditionally plain tort table. I, too will be watching to see how your results go. Thanks for sharing.

I don't think genetics plays a role in pyramiding but I do think the pair dynamic does.
I received a pair of leopard yearlings that were raised together clutch mates. Summer was the dominant one and Bumble Bee was the submissive one. Summer was smoother. After coming to me they were no longer kept in a pair. They either spend time alone or time in a group. Since the pair dynamic was stopped, Bumble Bee has sky rocketed! He's almost doubled in size and all the new growth is perfectly smooth. You can clearly tell a difference. Summer looks like same. She has grown but not like Bumble Bee.
I always recommend that anyone keeping Leopards in a pair either splits them up or adds a third. It does make a difference :)

Wauw....very tempting the idea that you need to get 3 :)
 

oliviaTORTOISE

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2013
Messages
111
Thank you so much! I am now thinking if inserting grass into my enclosure instead of bark! Do you happen to know what kind of grass that is? How often do I need to replace the grass? Thanks! [TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE]
 

julietteq

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
267
Location (City and/or State)
Amsterdam. Netherlands
oliviaTORTOISE said:
Thank you so much! I am now thinking if inserting grass into my enclosure instead of bark! Do you happen to know what kind of grass that is? How often do I need to replace the grass? Thanks! [TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE]

The grass you see in this picture is heavily seeded Penncross Creeping Bent Grass (but I grow a lot of different kind of grasses and weeds). It does a really good job keeping the humidity levels in an open table to +95% without creating mold in your house! I water the grass 2 times a day (morning and evening) and I add fertilizer to the water once a week.

The torts really like to eat the grass so every day, I take a tray out (even if it has plenty of grass left) and replace it by a new one. This means none of the trays is on the table for more then 4 days. This is the most efficient way in this setup because I do not have to reseed the trays. The grass trays will spend 4 days on the table and then 10 days in my little greenhouse.

My table is pretty much selfsufficient and appears to grow all the food the tortoises need. I still feed them cactus, aloe Vera, Agave, zoomed and Mazuri but I only "handfeed" these items to them meaning they have to take it out of my hands to eat it. It makes them tame very very fast!

Hope this answers your question, if not, just let me know.

Juliette
 

edwardbo

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2013
Messages
269
It doesn't get better than this .people,you can grow little pots of grass in deli cups, lids .....and place them in the substrait ,it's very easy.play around,have fun,Evan bird,parakeet seed will work
 

ulkal

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
195
AW: New tortoise table (picture heavy!)

This is my fav enclosure so far. Fantastic!
 

Evy

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
369
Location (City and/or State)
San Diego, CA
julietteq said:
oliviaTORTOISE said:
Thank you so much! I am now thinking if inserting grass into my enclosure instead of bark! Do you happen to know what kind of grass that is? How often do I need to replace the grass? Thanks! [TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE]

The grass you see in this picture is heavily seeded Penncross Creeping Bent Grass (but I grow a lot of different kind of grasses and weeds). It does a really good job keeping the humidity levels in an open table to +95% without creating mold in your house! I water the grass 2 times a day (morning and evening) and I add fertilizer to the water once a week.

The torts really like to eat the grass so every day, I take a tray out (even if it has plenty of grass left) and replace it by a new one. This means none of the trays is on the table for more then 4 days. This is the most efficient way in this setup because I do not have to reseed the trays. The grass trays will spend 4 days on the table and then 10 days in my little greenhouse.

My table is pretty much selfsufficient and appears to grow all the food the tortoises need. I still feed them cactus, aloe Vera, Agave, zoomed and Mazuri but I only "handfeed" these items to them meaning they have to take it out of my hands to eat it. It makes them tame very very fast!

Hope this answers your question, if not, just let me know.

Juliette

Hi, your table look pretty cool. I'm in the process of making a new and big enclosure for my sully. I'm going to get some of your ideas for her place. Thank you so much for the inspiration.

I been wanting to put a humidifier too. Where did you get yours ? $?
 

julietteq

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
267
Location (City and/or State)
Amsterdam. Netherlands
Evy said:
julietteq said:
oliviaTORTOISE said:
Thank you so much! I am now thinking if inserting grass into my enclosure instead of bark! Do you happen to know what kind of grass that is? How often do I need to replace the grass? Thanks! [TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE][TURTLE]

The grass you see in this picture is heavily seeded Penncross Creeping Bent Grass (but I grow a lot of different kind of grasses and weeds). It does a really good job keeping the humidity levels in an open table to +95% without creating mold in your house! I water the grass 2 times a day (morning and evening) and I add fertilizer to the water once a week.

The torts really like to eat the grass so every day, I take a tray out (even if it has plenty of grass left) and replace it by a new one. This means none of the trays is on the table for more then 4 days. This is the most efficient way in this setup because I do not have to reseed the trays. The grass trays will spend 4 days on the table and then 10 days in my little greenhouse.

My table is pretty much selfsufficient and appears to grow all the food the tortoises need. I still feed them cactus, aloe Vera, Agave, zoomed and Mazuri but I only "handfeed" these items to them meaning they have to take it out of my hands to eat it. It makes them tame very very fast!

Hope this answers your question, if not, just let me know.

Juliette

Hi, your table look pretty cool. I'm in the process of making a new and big enclosure for my sully. I'm going to get some of your ideas for her place. Thank you so much for the inspiration.

I been wanting to put a humidifier too. Where did you get yours ? $?

I am honored that you may copy some parts of my table. Please make sure to show you pictures of your enclosure as well ! I got a lot of inspiration for my table by looking at other people's tables and I am sure mine can be improved.

The fogger is from zoomed and is pretty expensive as you can see. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0019IJXD2/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

I have it hooked up (together with the radiated heat panel I use as a ceiling of my steamroom) to the zoomed hygrotherm meter which costs a fortune! Zoo Med HygroTherm Humidity and Temperature Controller

They are a lot of money, but it all works perfectly. If you have to choose I would go for the fogger. You can put it on an inexpensive timeclock and it will work great as well. The hygrometer is sheer luxury. Turning the fogger on for a minute or so every hour should work fine depending on the size of your table.

Regards

Juliette
 

StarSapphire22

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2013
Messages
2,687
Location (City and/or State)
Fargo, ND
Stunning. I may be using this idea for the top level of my new enclosure once its finished. I absolutely love the "pond."
 

julietteq

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
267
Location (City and/or State)
Amsterdam. Netherlands
StarSapphire22 said:
Stunning. I may be using this idea for the top level of my new enclosure once its finished. I absolutely love the "pond."

Thanks for the compliment! The torts appear to love it. They are increadible active. Please make sure you post pictures of your table when it is ready. I am sure you will have some pretty good ideas as well which I may want to incorporate in my table.
 

julietteq

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
267
Location (City and/or State)
Amsterdam. Netherlands
Hello,

I get a lot of questions about the lights and heatsources I use. I actually use 2 full spectrum lights and 2 Ceramic Heat Emitters. I have set lamps as high away from the table as I could because recently there has been a lot of discussion about the fact that the lights we use may cause pyramiding. I also use a heatmat underneath the seedtrays.

I added 2 maiden ferns in the pond area in order to give the tortoises more "privacy" in their humid hide.

So far it is working out great. There is no sign of pyramiding and both of them are growing well.

Thank you all for your nice comments and let me know if you have improvements I can implement.


DSC06299.JPGDSC06298.JPGDSC06300.jpgDSC06295.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:

julietteq

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
267
Location (City and/or State)
Amsterdam. Netherlands
Hello everybody,

I promised you I would keep you updated on how this "unconventional" table design is working and so far so good. There is no sign of pyramiding and the little pyramiding Taco had is smoothing out with new growth. I made some modifications (added more hides, plants and increased the distance of the lights to the table) which you can see here http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread-87301.html
Please let me know your comments/suggestions etc.

Juliette
 

julietteq

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
267
Location (City and/or State)
Amsterdam. Netherlands
HI Everybody, I redesigned my table…..again…..but based on the same principle. However instead of growing my own grass I bought some hydrophonically grown grass sods and put wet sphagnum moss underneath it, which works great. Both Taco and Marshmellow are doing great. No pyramiding, healthy appetites and no problems whatsoever :)
 

Attachments

  • DSC06886.jpg
    DSC06886.jpg
    4.2 MB · Views: 52
  • DSC06888.JPG
    DSC06888.JPG
    5 MB · Views: 53
  • DSC06887.JPG
    DSC06887.JPG
    4.8 MB · Views: 47
  • DSC06889.JPG
    DSC06889.JPG
    4.9 MB · Views: 47

New Posts

Top