Please help!

[tehbetty]

I'm preparing for my first tortoise, a serrated hingeback from my local pet store. I know that this breed is considered difficult to care for, but I've been reading as much as I can and I believe I can provide for her. I've started setting up the tank, and I'm extremely excited to go pick her up, but I just can't get the temp and humidity to budge from 70F and about 50%. I have an under-tank heating pad and a ceramic heat emitter. Should I get another heating pad?

Another question: hingebacks need UVB AND dim lighting, right? how do I reconcile that? I purchased a UVB fluorescent bulb for the overhead, and that's what the pet store has been using, but it's very bright.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi tehBetty:

I can't help you with your hingeback problem, I just wanted to:

WELCOME you to the forum!!

 

[egyptiandan]

That's the thing Hingebacks don't need very much UV lighting. They will get most of their vitamin D from the animal protein and prepared food they eat. I wouldn't go higher than a 5.0 tube and even that should be shaded.
How big is your enclosure? Where are you getting the 70F? What are you using for substrate? What are you reading temperatures and humidity with?

Danny

 

[tehbetty]

Okay, I have a 2.0 tube. How do I shade it?

The enclosure is a glass 20 gallon long-style tank (she's still small). I'm certainly not in a position to provide an outdoor enclosure at this time in my life and in my location. The 70F is coming from the cool end of the tank and I'm using the little plastic thermometer/hygrometer from ZooMed. Should I invest in digital?

As for the things inside the tank, I have forest bark substrate with a half log hide with some timothy hay inside for burrowing, a nice big shallow dish for soaking and drinking, a shallow dish for feeding, a cuttlebone for gnawing, and some sphagnum moss for humidity.

Foodwise, I bought Land Tortoise Diet from Fluker's, some spray-on vitamins, and some meal worms. I'll have to do some experimenting to see what she likes because they pretty much just feed her commercial food at the store.

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Oh and also, there's another thermometer at the hot end that's reading about 80F.

Thank you for the welcome, Yvonne!

 

[egyptiandan]

70F is fine for at night, but during the day the enclosure should be 80 to 86F. Are you using a reflector for your heat emitter? How far away from the substrate is the emitter?
A digital one is probably better than the one you have. You probably though just have to add some more water to the substrate to get the humidity up.

Danny

 

[tehbetty]

Yah, I've got a reflector dome for the CHE, and the substrate is about 10" from the CHE. I misted the moss pretty well already. I really hope I can get this figured out by tomorrow because I am just chomping at the bit to go pick her up!

 

[t_mclellan]

Try this trick,
Add some "Long fiber" Sphagnum moss to the substrate.
Wet the Sphagnum & mix it in well.
If the substrate is around 3" deep it should end up almost dry on top & keep high humidity in the tank.
Change the hay in the hide to Sphagnum.
If the humidity dose not go high enough you might cover some of the tanks top with a plastic sheet.

Hope this helps & best of luck!

Tom McL.

 

[Itort]

The 2.0 tube is good (where did you find this and who's the manufacture). As Tom says go with the long fiber sphagrum and the plastic sheet is a great help (that's what I do for mine). Foodwise soft fruits, earthworms (just dump them in the substrat so it has to 'hunt them') and offer greens mixed the fruit so it will begin to accept greens as food.

 

[egyptiandan]

You might need a higher wattage CHE to get the temperatures up or a second one.

Danny

 

[Jacqui]

Just be careful with the heat. In a 20 gal tank, there won't be any place for her to go, if you get those temps too hot. If 70 is the coolest point, what do you have the warmest up to? What temp is the house temp? What size UTH pad do you have? Same side as the CHE?

 

[chairman]

Does the tortoise have its hinge yet? If so, I'm thinking that it is already too big for a 20 long. I would return and or sell the tank and use the proceeds to build a tortoise table; your tortoise will be a lot happier. The enclosure section on here is full of great ideas you can use to build a home out of bookcases, lumber (home improvement stores will cut all the wood for you if you don't have a saw), plastic storage bins, kiddie pools, stock tanks...

For the temps, 70 on the cool side and 80 on the hot sounds decent to me. My tortoises prefer to hang out in the cool part of the enclosure. If you find your tortoise spending all its time on the warm side then you can work to raise the temps, probably with a higher wattage CHE.

As for humidity you could bury a water dish right below the CHE. Fill it full of substrate and keep it moist. The evaporation should raise your humidity nicely.

 

[tehbetty]

Thanks for the help, I got the temps up, still working on the humidity. She definitely does not have her hinge yet.

 

[chairman]

I for one would love to see some pics of your new tortoise. I'm not sure I've ever seen a hingeback that young and I am curious to see what they look like.

 

[tehbetty]

The 2.0 tube is good (where did you find this and who's the manufacture). As Tom says go with the long fiber sphagrum and the plastic sheet is a great help (that's what I do for mine). Foodwise soft fruits, earthworms (just dump them in the substrat so it has to 'hunt them') and offer greens mixed the fruit so it will begin to accept greens as food.

I got the tube at the pet store where I'm going to buy the tortoise. It's an ExoTerra. Can I buy the earthworms from a bait store or should I go dig them up somewhere?

---

I for one would love to see some pics of your new tortoise. I'm not sure I've ever seen a hingeback that young and I am curious to see what they look like.

I will post some as soon as I pick her up, but at the rate the hygrometer is moving, it might not be till tomorrow. :-/

 

[Itort]

I buy my worms from the bait shop along with other treats I think they'd like (frozen bait shrimp, bait leechs, ect). I'd stick with redworms until it gets larger. Also if you access to a wild area like a forest gather up some leaves off the floor as these contain all kinds of hingie yummies.

 

[Jacqui]

Around here the Redworms are only sold at the major pet store. I get my earthworms at the local WalMart. If your yard is free of chemicals and the like, you might just check out in your own yard and see if you can catch some worms. The little roly polys are also good for them to eat.

 

[tehbetty]

I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I have a plastic sheet over half the tank, drenched sphagnum moss, and a little thing of water under the CHE as well as a nice big shallow water dish on the cool side. I got the humidity up to 70% for about an hour but mostly it hovers around 60%. I'm starting to get scared that I actually won't be able to take care of my baby. I did get the temps perfect though.

Oh and I went and visited her again today and looked a little closer. I still don't see a hinge on her. I'm gonna guesstimate that she's 4 inches long. And she looks much more like Kinixys homeana than Kinixys erosa. The pet store had her labeled as Serrated Hingeback. So I'm wondering if she's female or if they got that wrong too. They were woefully uninformed about her origins, apparently they got her from a breeder, but they don't know who or where and they don't have a phone number I could call. I have an appointment with a vet in two weeks so we'll see whether she really is female.

 

[Jacqui]

Relax! Having the humidity just perfect is no big deal. What is more important is you are working on the humidity and you have water soaking area available to her. The main thing is to not keep her in a dry environment, which your not going to be doing.

At 4", I wouldn't be sexing her. Does her sex matter to you?

 

[tehbetty]

Only for naming purposes.

I've chosen Aziza for her, and if it turns out down the road she's male I can just change it to Aziz.

 

[Jacqui]

Nice name!