Since I got my baby greek Helios in december 2012, I have been on tortoise forum everyday. I have been trying to tweak his indoor enclosure to make it as good as possible, based on all the good info I found on this site. Helios is only 5 months old, and I know people say that baby tortoises sleep a lot. However I felt that my little guy was was spending too much time sleeping under his substrate (coconut coir). He would wake up at like 11 am, I would give him a 20 min soak, he would eat and then he would go to sleep again around 3 pm. I spent I lot of time on this site trying to figure out if I was doing something wrong. His enclosures was about 70 F on the cool end, 95-100 F under my 160 W Powersun mvb (this is the only bulb I use).
I eventually came across a post from GBtortoises. He said that he recommends a UVB tube and a small basking bulb for small torts because he felt that the mvbs gave off too much heat. That got me thinking that my powerful mvb bulb (160 W) that kept about 1\4th of my enclosure at 95-100 F at substrate level was giving off to much heat. I raised it about 2 inches (using the zoomed light stand). The temps on the hot 1\4th went down to 90-95 F (the cool part is still in the low 70s). I also moved his enclosure right in front of a window to increase ambient light levels. Lately Helios wakes up around 8-9 am, spends several hours basking, eats 2-3 times a day and buries himself around 4-5 pm.
These small changes in temps + ambient light levels made a big difference for Helios. Hope this post can help other sleepy tortoises.
I eventually came across a post from GBtortoises. He said that he recommends a UVB tube and a small basking bulb for small torts because he felt that the mvbs gave off too much heat. That got me thinking that my powerful mvb bulb (160 W) that kept about 1\4th of my enclosure at 95-100 F at substrate level was giving off to much heat. I raised it about 2 inches (using the zoomed light stand). The temps on the hot 1\4th went down to 90-95 F (the cool part is still in the low 70s). I also moved his enclosure right in front of a window to increase ambient light levels. Lately Helios wakes up around 8-9 am, spends several hours basking, eats 2-3 times a day and buries himself around 4-5 pm.
These small changes in temps + ambient light levels made a big difference for Helios. Hope this post can help other sleepy tortoises.
