Ember909
Member
There are a few points that I don't understand about the environment for a Greek tortoise. I think that a lot of these questions have been addressed before, but many of the answers I've seen seem confusing and/or contradictory, so help and clarification would be much appreciated. One thing is what kind of humidity I should provide. As far as I can tell, Greeks don't need added humidity (please correct me if this is wrong). Is it still important to provide a humid hide box? (I will also be providing non-humid hides in either case.) And, how deep should the substrate be? I read that 6-8 inches is okay for females as long as a nesting box is provided. I plan to get a male (and if I get a female I will almost certainly not breed her), so is the nesting box still important?
I know that a basking bulb and UVB tube are essential. Should there be another heater or something to keep that end up to temperature? If not, you can skip the next paragraph.
For controlling the temperature, I think the usual way is to connect the heat producers to an electronic thermometer, so they turn off and on to keep the temp stable. Should the heat bulb, or the additional heater, or both, go on and off to maintain the right temps? And what do people recommend for the additional heater?
I'm also going to keep it in an outdoor enclosure when I can. The breed is a Mesopotamian (Golden) Greek, which I hear is relatively cold tolerant. So what temperatures are safe for it? Should there be a heat bulb out there, too? (It's in a fairly sunny area, but we have a lot of trees around us, so it's far from permanently warmed.)
Plus... this might be a really dumb idea... but if a humid hide is important/good, would it work to have a basin for humidity, with a hole in the bottom, that was connected to a pipe going down, across, then up into an external funnel, so that it can be refilled from the outside? I was imagining, if the funnel was at the same height as the basin, you could easily check water level and add more without opening up the hide. This might be a bad idea, but I figured it's worth sharing. This is a half-minute drawing of what I had in mind.
I know that a basking bulb and UVB tube are essential. Should there be another heater or something to keep that end up to temperature? If not, you can skip the next paragraph.
For controlling the temperature, I think the usual way is to connect the heat producers to an electronic thermometer, so they turn off and on to keep the temp stable. Should the heat bulb, or the additional heater, or both, go on and off to maintain the right temps? And what do people recommend for the additional heater?
I'm also going to keep it in an outdoor enclosure when I can. The breed is a Mesopotamian (Golden) Greek, which I hear is relatively cold tolerant. So what temperatures are safe for it? Should there be a heat bulb out there, too? (It's in a fairly sunny area, but we have a lot of trees around us, so it's far from permanently warmed.)
Plus... this might be a really dumb idea... but if a humid hide is important/good, would it work to have a basin for humidity, with a hole in the bottom, that was connected to a pipe going down, across, then up into an external funnel, so that it can be refilled from the outside? I was imagining, if the funnel was at the same height as the basin, you could easily check water level and add more without opening up the hide. This might be a bad idea, but I figured it's worth sharing. This is a half-minute drawing of what I had in mind.
Last edited: