Omgggggg.. this is the first time I'm using the UV lamp. I left the UVB light on for 30 straight hours unattended, and some freaky changes happened to my turtles.

This is what they looked like before.. kinda pale. Never exposed them to unfiltered sunlight before.


Now they're very dark green?! I'm not sure if my eyes are being fooled, but both the missus and I agree that they've gone much darker


And the cuttlefish bone that was floating for a week untouched.. they chewed it until it sank?!?

@wKkaY

May i know which brand of UVB light you are using? Seem like it's very... effective lol

Edit: double post

This post has been edited by hwa107: Jun 11 2009, 01:12 AM

Hey guys, gonna get my first Armored Reptile by this Saturday. Wondering what type of materials do you guys use as the floor bedding and anyone would like to share their setup for land tortoises?

PS : Oh yes not to forget, thanks to all those who have been very helpful, I'm much more confident to take the tortoise in now.

I just saw one of my turtles do the mating ritual!!! Erm, while the other turtle was trying to heave itself underneath a rock. It's so cute. Guess that confirms his gender to be male right?

Updated, thanks for headups!

LOL, talking about long vacation its been quite some time ive had a long nice vacation since i started this hobby

For land tortoise, you can try recycled paper pellets. They are very useful at absorbing the pee and liquid from the poo thus reducing the stench odour from it.

Too small to sex them, at least 4inch minimum would do, but that depends on their diet too since overgrowth problem is popular on this species.

uzairi,samperth,camillenior,
do u think feeding hatchling tortoise with small amount of calcium for every meal offered is overdosing?

Hi uzairi,

Are you referring to the breeder celect cat litter pellets?

I think so !!

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Added on June 11, 2009, 8:42 pmYa I think he refering to that

I am using the following now (Dry species like Sulcata , Indian Star , Leopard , Pancake ...)after my supplier (Local pet shop) fail to bring Breeder Celect in

http://www.woodypet.com/

Cheaper than breeder celect and last longer !!

This post has been edited by SAMPERTH: Jun 11 2009, 08:42 PM

Is it a concern if the water turns *slightly* green but otherwise is clear? it looks like someone poured pandan extract into the aquarium.

Does that mean my filter is underpowered? The tank+filter are one week old.

Thanks samperth once again, ure really helpful!!

Also, you mentioned that offering calcium powder in hatchlings meal every day is actually overdosing, what is the correct way then? Can you provide some sort of guidelines or something like that? The ST that I'm getting is about 2.5 inches and I'm already all paranoid on how am I going to make sure it survives well.

I just use newspaper as bedding for my st .

Yup, even with small amount you would easily exceed their calcium requirement by doing so. Once or twice per week would do just fine.

Correct.

Something that would make me a happy man lol. But i never saw this brand selling around here

Its not underpowered, but youre lacking something else which is the biological and chemical filter element part to complement the wool filter element.

For biological filter element, you can use crushed coral and chemical filter element you can use charcoal. This 2 combination would make the water clearer and less smell too.

To use them together, just place the crushed coral under the wool filter element and charcoal filter element at the bottom. The water would go from the wool, crushed coral and finally charcoal.

You can pour some of the powder at every alternating meal, or once a week depending on what u feed them. They might not take green foods with sprinkled powder, instead try giving those powder with striking and colorful foods such as the hibiscus leaf or dragon fruit.

This is a cheap and good way but its quite messy and smelly at times if you are not there to change the newspaper bedding often.

Thanks for the reply again Uzairi. I'm planning on going on a staple diet of Mustard Greens(Sawi) and probably some other veggies/fruits like once a week or so(no idea here, please do advice!!). With that planning in mind, how should the calcium in take be?

Oh yes, has anyone actually tried using sand? Are they dangerous? I think they look pretty darn cool but I'm not sure how harmful can it be to tortoises.

EDIT : One more thing guys, if I were to emulate UV basking, will a 5.0 UVB bulb or a 10.0 UVB bulb be better? Also, what are the differences between lower voltage UVB bulb and higher voltage UVB bulb? Which would be better then? Higher or Lower?

This post has been edited by Kar: Jun 12 2009, 05:11 AM

Ingestion is always a risk with using sand as substrate, as cumulatively it would lead to gut impaction. I'd strongly recommend against, especially for small stars.

FYI, even Singapore Zoo's Damn Big Galapagos Giant Tortoise got problem with ingested sand before. I'm not clear on the vet procedure there, but i know that the keepers resorted to change the substrate used in the enclosure.

Higher voltage means the bulb or the fixing is of greater size. No difference to UVB output.

For stars, the 10.0 output is recommended, no worries, they'd never get OD'ed from UVB.

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Last year, i was worried about the rain. This year, i'm worried about the lack of rain.

Even those Chelids are now in summer hibernation, they never did that in previous years.

This post has been edited by camillenoir: Jun 12 2009, 09:10 AM

hi kar,heres some of my point of view
feeding them fruits will cause serious consequences like diahrea,imbalance of the gut PH etc,and will also damage the gut walls.for me,i never feed my arid tortoise with fruits,but i not sure with others.maybe once a while is find for them.

for sand,normally in oversea (malaysia so far rarely see ppl using that) they are using children playing sand.i tried to find it last time at all around the toys shop,but i coulnd find it..
if u use sand,normaly ppl wil put a tiles or some stones around the water bowl or feeding bowl to avoid them from consuming the sand.

8.0 UVB will be good enough.too high output might cause the eyes damage.
the voltage is depends on the height u place the bulb.height increase,voltage increase.

please correct me if i am wrong

iinm, exoterra has stopped the production of all 8.0 uvb products but i don't know of other brands.

the voltage:height argument i don't get . power usage could never change with height.

This post has been edited by camillenoir: Jun 12 2009, 10:05 AM

if my turtle juz use florecent light enough?

bcoz turte not required heat right? i juz provide 5.0 uvb ok?

I have a JBL Reptil-Sun 8.0% UVB.

http://www.petshack.com.my/

I use to get fom them , but not anymore - Sifu found the source and we bought direct much cheaper (both stuff and freight)
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[attachmentid=1018824]

Just to add a pic for size comparison
- Same as Breeder celect crumble after become wet
- Similar size pellet this one slightly bigger

This post has been edited by SAMPERTH: Jun 12 2009, 04:02 PM

IINM, the UVB reading for that product is about 25 µW/cm2 at 12". I'd say OK on that.

Considering the fact that our sunlight here has maximum UVB reading of about 250 µW/cm2 on a sunny day, i'm more concerned that commercially available bulbs do not provide enough rather than providing too much. Especially since UVB output would decay much faster than we'd like to. But that's just me

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Added on June 12, 2009, 6:03 pmIf you're talking about regular flourescent light alone, that it is not enough.

Heat is beneficial for turtles. I just state that down a few posts earlier.

UVB 5.0 is OK, but better if you can find some time on the weekends to bask them under the sun

This post has been edited by camillenoir: Jun 12 2009, 06:11 PM