Vivarium for yearling tort

[ayrgrn]

Hello,
I have a tortoise table that I build for my 1yr 3month old tort it is 4ft by 2ft, I've had my tort since February this year and he seems to be doing just fine, however I am struggling with a small bit of pyramiding due to the low-ish humidity that I cannot really control in a tortoise table due to it being open topped.

I am thinking of buying a vivarium that is roughly the same size, it might be a bit smaller but I have seen some stuff online that has put me off a bit, I'm not too sure.
I've heard that the tort can be a bit confused because of the glass, to solve this I was thinking of doing a shallow patch of substrate next to the glass doors then doing a gradient going deeper as you go towards the back of the vivarium. If this does not work then I was thinking of painting a dark green grass pattern on the bottom of the doors to make it opaque?

Also, I've heard that torts can get respiratory problems in vivs, is this true? I have a Hermanns and I know they are desert so I would try to keep the humidity to around 60- 70%? I would like to get his shell to smoothen out but I don't want to risk his health.

Thanks

 

[Yvonne G]

Many people, myself included, have used vivariums or aquariums to raise babies, and it has not been a problem. . . no problems with the glass, no respiratory infections. If you have one that worries the glass, you can just tape a strip of paper around the bottom outside of the glass. What species of tortoise do you have? It's unusual for lack of moisture to cause a Mediterranean type tortoise to pyramid. That's usually caused by diet and lack of UVB.

 

[ayrgrn]

Many people, myself included, have used vivariums or aquariums to raise babies, and it has not been a problem. . . no problems with the glass, no respiratory infections. If you have one that worries the glass, you can just tape a strip of paper around the bottom outside of the glass. What species of tortoise do you have? It's unusual for lack of moisture to cause a Mediterranean type tortoise to pyramid. That's usually caused by diet and lack of UVB.

Oh okay, interesting, he is a Hermanns and has a diet of mixed weeds that I grow in my garden that is dusted with nutribal before given to him.
He also has a t8 10.0 uvb strip in the enclosure.

I have been putting him in his humid hide at night and have seen some slight improvement on new shell growth so I do think that humidity is the problem.

Thanks for the info

 

[Alex Z]

Can you offer bigger space for an enclosure that is 6x3? If so, maybe something like this you can do?

Just substitute for a hermanns environment.