Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently Picked up two baby sulcata tortoises and they both seemed to be in good health eating right when I brought them home. I am keeping them in a kiddie pool with newspaper substrate just so it is easier to clean but any suggestions for that are appreciated. Anyway the problems started last week when the one sulcata started getting slugish and the other guy is still acting like a tank. I made sure it was hot enough I have a UVA/UVB bulb on from 7-9 everyday and I have a basking/heatlamp on as well from 7-9 I have a ceramic heat bulb on 24/7 I also have a space heater in the room which is on at night so the temperature shouldn't drop below 72. The basking spot is at 92.4 and the average cage temp was around 83-86. I don't think heat is what is making this guy sick and he doesn't seem to be having an breathing problems so I don't think it is upper respitorary. Right now all he does is sits in one spot and basks and then If I move him to the food dish he eats then walks back to the basking spot. He seems very weak his two front legs are kinda bugging me they seem really weak. It also kinda looks like his back legs are bubbly I wanna say they almost look like baggy pants or something. He is still eating fine once I move him to the food dish but he hardly walks on his own. I did treat him two days ago for parasites with some panacure to see if that would help and he seems to be eating more but other than that not really anymore active. ANY IDEAS? I seriously would like to hear everything and anything I don't wanna see this guy die off.

The little guy could be dehydrated. Sometimes we use so much heater and bulbs to try to raise the temperature in the enclosure, but forget how dry it could be. After I added the humid hide last winter, the problem goes away. I have 3 wet sponges in an 2'x4' tortoise table. They dried up within 24 hours in the winter. That's just my guess.