how can you maintain the heat in a tortoise table?

Question

i have got a 1.5 year old hermans tortoise that at the moment lives in a vivaruim i have reasearch the internet and have realised tht tortoise tables are a better home for a tortoise to live in, but i was wondering how the heat in the tortoise table is maintained as in a vivarruim the heat is traped in , have you got any ideas

Answer 1

Basking lights for daytime heat. Temp drops at night to around 70-75 is ok, which is usually room temp for most people. You could use a picke of slate under the basking light to absorb some of the heat as well.

Answer 2

In general, we will use 2 heat sources.

Heat Source 1 is Background Heat- the low temp you want the table at. The easiest way to do this is with the room temperature. You can also try some combination of:
- making a 'tent' over the table to trap some heat in it
- using heating coils to gently warm (but not 'heat') the soil
- several smaller heat lamps (IR, ceramic, basking, whatever) spread over the space

Heat Source 2 is Spot Heat- this is the temp you want your hot spot(s) at. Simple basking lights do this nicely.

Tortoise tables are GREAT... if the room they are in is about the right habitat. Basements, cold rooms, etc., however, need a slightly different solution. A 'tented' table is one common option. Rig up your tortoise table, and use clear or translucent material- poly sheets, clear vinyl, etc. to make a tent that the lighting and heat is set-up inside of.

One setup I have seen that I liked was to use some lightweight rigid insulation board to make a 'ceiling' for the table, same size as the table. Rig up a simple framework- a 2x4 upright on both sides of the table, and one across the top is all you need. Glue or screw the insulation board on the top of the crossbar.

You mount the lighting, heating, etc. on the crossbar, and either drape the poly over the whole thing, or attach to to hand off the insulation board.

Insulation board is easy enough to work with and cheap enough that if you are in a cooler room, you can use it to make a ceiling, and 3 of the 4 walls of a big box over the table, with plastic over the 'front' of the box.

Answer 3

The basking light needs to keep the warm end of the tort table in the high 80's to low 90's (measuring surface temperatures) . If it isn't warm enough you need to buy a higher watt bulb(I use a 100 watt) and adjust the height of the bulb until it stays the proper temperature.
The cool end doesn't need to be kept warm unless the temperatures drop below the low 60's.
If it does go below 60 I would look into buying a low watt bulb or heat emmiter to use on the cool side to keep the temps in the high 60's low 70's.