Red-footed - too humid and general enclosure question

[Gisela4277]

Hello group!

I hope some of you more experienced tortoise owners can provide some guidance. We've had our 6 month red-footed ('Flash') for a couple months now and have been trying to find the right enclosure environment for him, but feel that we still don't have it quite right. I've been reviewing the tips and suggestions on this thread, but now feel I need to post my specific set up and question to see if you all can point out any areas we can improve upon.



First, we have a bottom heater on the left side that keeps that area of the enclosure warm and the right side is not heated. His terra cotta water dish is over on the right, but we find it seeps so that area is constantly wet. This leads to my first issue - the humidity seems way too high. It's always at 99% or above (ignore the digital reader in the picture, we had the top off for a bit). It was so high, that the wood half log we had in there started getting mold and we had to dispose. The screen top is covered in plastic to keep the humidity in - should we poke some holes in it to level out the humidity? Or find another, non-seeping water dish?

Also - should his terra cotta pot burrow be on the warm half of the enclosure or the cool half? He gets natural light during the day as the room gets bright from the open shades and the ambient temp in the enclosure is ~74, with the heated area warmer.

Would love to hear of any additional suggestions. His feeding dish and the tortoise is not pictured because he was currently in a different location with my son while the picture was being taken. The feeding part is working OK.

Thanks in advance for the suggestions - this group has been very helpful already!
-Gisela

 

[Anyfoot]

If your water dish has been seeping water for the last couple months then I'll bet your bottom layer of substrate is sodden. Does it smell stagnant when you dig to the bottom.
Also because your heat is coming from below, it's like super efficient regarding your humidity. Your warming up all that seeping water and getting it very very humid.
Personally It wouldn't concern me having 99% humidity, I have this level plenty of times, but the mold is bad.
If it was me for now, I would take at the substrate and dry it out a bit then put it back in with a new none seeping water dish. If it does smell stagnant I would start with new substrate. I had this exact same thing happen with my hinges, but my heat was from above, so that suggests it's the seeping water dish that is the problem.
If it persists after that the next thing to try us a CHE for your heat source. Putting holes in your enclosure is the 3rd option, this option will loose heat aswell as humidity. Your temps want to be an ambient, ideally between 82 and 86f throughout.

Good luck

 

[Gisela4277]

Thanks, Anyfoot. We've replaced all of the substrate and the food dish and letting it air out for the day. We'll close it back up tomorrow to see how high the humidity climbs back up. Our plan (before the seeping water dish) was to periodically soak the bottom of the substrate to keep the humidty high. Glad to know it can't really get to high as long as it's not getting stagnant. We'll see how this goes and keep a close eye on it.

 

[TammyJ]

You said he gets natural light during the day. Is this direct sunlight or is there glass on the window? UVB is what is needed and it won't go through glass or plastic - so I understand.