Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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1.0.0 Jack Russel Terrier: Skipper
0.1.0 Miniature Pinscher: Bambi
1.1.1 Eastern Box Turtles: Daisy, Dozer, and Magnum
0.1.0 Red Eared Slider: Rosie
0.2.0 Rats: Clementine and Elsie
0.0.2 Rainbow Cichlids

Hey lilypad. Well, I can confidently say one thing...he still looks great! He's bright, alert, and appears to have nice weight on him.

I just have one question. What type of bulb do you have on him? I'm referring to the 60 watt UV bulb. Is it a spiral flourescent?

Wonderful photos. Dozer is very beautiful!
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PHRatz

>>Hey lilypad. Well, I can confidently say one thing...he still looks great! He's bright, alert, and appears to have nice weight on him.
>>

Thank you! It's amazing the progress he has made since I first got him.

>>I just have one question. What type of bulb do you have on him? I'm referring to the 60 watt UV bulb. Is it a spiral flourescent?

Exo-Terra Day Glo 60 watt bulb w/ UVA (not a fluorescent - I don't have a hood to accomidate lighting strips - its more of a spotlight)

I got some sphagnum moss that I may try in conjuction with a lid to keep the humidity up to encourage eating. The 100 watt bulb keeps him nice and warm when he is basking, but the entire enclosure could stand to be warmer. I went out today and got some thermometers to keep at each end of his enclosure, as well as a humidity meter. Hopefully they will give me a better idea of whats wrong.
Thanks for the reply
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1.0.0 Jack Russel Terrier: Skipper
0.1.0 Miniature Pinscher: Bambi
1.1.1 Eastern Box Turtles: Daisy, Dozer, and Magnum
0.1.0 Red Eared Slider: Rosie
0.2.0 Rats: Clementine and Elsie
0.0.2 Rainbow Cichlids

::xo-Terra Day Glo 60 watt bulb w/ UVA (not a fluorescent - I don't have a hood to accomidate lighting strips - its more of a spotlight) :::

If you don't have a UVB emitting light you should add one. That could be why he isn't eating. Either use a fluorescent fixture with a reptisun or similar light or use a mercury vapor bulb, like a powersun, if you don't want to use fluorescent lighting.

Lilypad, I was thinking along these same lines. When I read that you had a 60 watt UVA/UVB bulb, I was suspicious. They don't make one at 60 watts that emits both. I thought that you were mislead by the pet store people. The bulb you have only emits UVA.

Some good news is that UVA is supposed to be implicated in spurring appetite in captive reptiles, so you have that covered. UVB is thought of as less mood altering and more a tool for synthesis of calcium. The conventional wisdom is that if you don't offer UVB lighting, you must add some Calcium D3 supplementation. All of this is still fairly new information, and there's really no telling what all the benefits and downfalls are.

If it were me, I'd follow all of the other recommendations first. Personally, I think that your turtle is simply going into "slow down" mode. The fact that he ate for a while tells me that he's not completely uncomfortable with the indoor setup. It's so difficult to determine what environmental clues he is detecting that are telling him to snooze. Try to fool him by keeping him warm, hydrated, and on a 14 hour day. Then, if it still didn't work I'd purchase a Powersun or T-Rex Active UV. They provide heat, UVA, and UVB.

Make sure you offer him a ton of different foods, including all sorts of fruits, partially cooked yams or sweet potatoes, boiled chicken breast, even frozen and thawed minnows, hard-boiled eggs...anything you can think of in addition to the live stuff. The best part is, you really don't have to panic. A typical healthy adult box turtle can go nearly two months without food and suffer only minimal weight loss.

so you use a 100 watt dayligth and what do you use as night light b/c i havent been getting the temps i want to see any other heat besides thats??

so you use a 100 watt dayligth and what do you use as night light b/c i havent been getting the temps i want to see any other heat besides thats??

Have you read some of the threads from the last few days? You'll see that different people have shared their setup information, and included photos, too.

From the previous thread, we know that Dozer is a male. In these photos, Dozer seems to have orange splotches, but I thought male ebts had yellow splotches. The ebt I had definitely had yellow--he was beautiful.

Was I wrong about male ebt color? Or is the color of these photos skewed because of tungsten lighting?

Male EBT's can be any of a variety of different colors, not just yellow. So can females, for that matter, although they tend to be less colorful than males overall. Not always, but usually.

As for Dozer, there appear to be some color shifts in the photography: this can easily happen when something is photographed under artificial lights.

Thanks!