Doug1293
New Member
So a few months ago I got my girlfriend a Sulcata tortoise hatchling and we were both really new to tortoise keeping. She kept it in an old aquatic turtle tank (about a 20 gallon tank if I'm not mistaken), but with no heat lamp. She fed it ledduce and straw berries. Soaked it for 20 min every other day. We noticed it got weak and lethargic, so I spent hours researching the issue and bought a UV heat lamp, a rock water pool, new substrate from persmart that said it was specifically for sulcata tortoises (we just used dirt before). Then I got sulcata tortoise pellets from petsmart (I'll update this with exact names) We turned the heat up to 90 in the day and continued soaking it for 20 mins every other day. There was a water dish with clean water at all times in her container. She (sprinkles the tortoise) started getting better and better, walking around and eating. It was all good until yesterday night when my girlfriend put her in a bowl of lukewarm water to soak like always. She was taller than the water so i don't understand how she could've drowned, but one moment she was looking around in the bowl, then my girlfriend went into the kitchen and came back and took her out to eat. She was limp with her mouth hanging wide open dead. We thought maybe she was in a coma but her shell is soft and underneath is turning purple now. I'm just really confused on how this happened if anyone has any idea..