Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Many reptiles, especially diaurnal herbivores, have a need for UVB rays from the sun which give Vitamin D3 which is valuable in metabolizing calcium. UVB rays can be attained for captive reptiles in one of two ways. Allowing your reptiles to bask directly in the sunlight at least a few hours a week is ideal. Glass will deflect UVB rays so it is important to provide direct basking, not just putting the cage by a window. If you can't provide direct sunlight, synthetic UVB light can be purchased at your local pet store.

UVB light bulbs usually run around $30, and many pet owners wonder if it is a necessary expense. Take a look at these two tortoises and decide for yourself. One had a heat lamp and heat pad its entire life. Its temps were in the correct range, and its diet was not too bad, but it was deprived of UVB light (both natural or synthetic) for a few years. As a result, it did not metabolize calcium properly and its shell is greatly deformed. The other
tortoise has spent much of its life roaming in the natural sunlight or under a synthetic UVB bulb indoors, and has developed a wonderful shell so far.

Can you guess which is which?

In the above picture you will notice that the shell is so deformed it does not come all the way down in front. Normally a sulcatta could pull its head in and block any opening in the front of the shell with its legs. Because the front opening is way too big this poor tortoise repeatedly "tries to hide" but can never cover his head for security.....it is probably a terribley stressed out animal as a result.

If you ever wondered how important UVB is for your herps, I hope these pictures will help you see the awful things your herp could go through without it.

Cheers,
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Jesse Rothacker
Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary
www.forgottenfriend.org

but the question is whether the one with the deformation received D3/CA supplement to its diet. That is a classic CA deficiency deformity, but could have been corrected or minimized with D3/CA powder even without direct sunlight.

Do you have photos of an animal raised as you described (with Ca and D3 but no UVB) to prove what you are saying? I ask this because I really doubt that you are correct in this statement. It is natural for 99% of tortoises to get UVB rays daily in the wild. Any husbandry technique which purposely avoids giving them any UVB at all and trying to substitute dietary supplements for the necessary UVB cannot work over a long term IMHO.

Zovick is right. Simple substitution of calcium supplement (even Repcal with D3) is insufficient to ensure the health of a tortoise. These sulcatas live in Sudan, Kenya, Chad, Niger, you know, places at the equator where it sometimes doesn't rain for years at a time and the sun is out 12 hours everyday. They're adapted to live under conditions of intense sunlight and harness it for their calcium production needs. Anyone who owns sulcatas will tell you that they are most active on sunny days, and this is not simply a warmth factor. On equally warm cloudy days, my animals are distinctly more lethargic, tending to rest in the open or retreat to a hide.

What was this poor animal fed, beans and dogfood? Whoever kept it did a terrible job raising it. Diet, illumination, and probably even housing arrangements were unsatisfactory. I'm surprised an animal like that could survive. Just goes to show you that he/she's a toughie, putting up with that kind of husbandry.

go ahead. He knows more about reptiles and how they work than just about anyone, and he knows that UVB producing bulbs are not a solution to bad husbandry. He has raised many tortoises without it (and he has greeks that he has kept very long term), and has proved that you don't need UVB to raise healthy reptiles in a long-term situation.

OK - I'm stumped!
Who is this FR you deify?

You are correct UVB exposure will not undo poor husbandry. However not providing UVB to tortoises IS bad husbandry and bad advice!

You want to see healthy tortoises? Put your tortoises in an outside habitat when the temperatures and other factors are right! Do the same with any diurnal lizard or tortoise & you will soon see a dramatic improvement in health, coloration, feeding, breeding etc of your reptiles.

Experiment for yourself!

Frank Retes. You can type it into a search engine. He is mostly known for breeding monitors, but he works with all reptiles. He knows more about the way reptiles work and why they do the things they do than anyone else you would ever talk to, because he's been at it longer than any of us, and he never got sucked into the hype. He learned about reptiles by studying them in the field, and working with them first hand to find what works and what doesn't. He has reptiles (carnivores and herbivores...including Greek tortoises) that are decades old, are in beyond perfect condition, reproduce all year round (and yes, this includes the greeks). He doesn't use UV lights or supplements. Just good husbandry, such as good diet, good temps (including hot basking spots), and good substrate (dirt, tons of well-hydrated dirt). I believe I even remember him discussing the fact that healthy reptiles that are supplied with the correct resources won't sit out in the open and bask for extended periods of time. That's not what they do in the wild. For the most part, many species of reptile (tortoises included) thermoregulate underground in burrows, or in other hiding spaces where there is less chance of being harassed or eaten. They emerge when they need to eat, or when they are not able to warm up enough in the safety of their burrows.

More fuel for the fire. Straight from the february issue of Reptiles magazine: "Information now suggests that raising baby tortoises in bone-dry conditinos doesn't allow their expanding shells to grow properly. Lack of ambient moisture, which juvenile tortoises would typically experience in burrows or under ground debris, seems to be the problem. This relatively new recognition will hopefully result in fewer future sulcatas - and other species - resembling walking hand grenades."

I don't usually agree with Reptiles magazine because their main mission is to sell stuff for the companies that buy their ad-space, but this is some good information (that I had heard prior to the february issue, from FR). As for renal problems caused by lack of UVB lighting, that has the same cause, except I think we'll agree that we all already knew that kidney and liver problems are primarily caused in reptiles by dehydration.

But let's get back to the point at hand. I am not telling anyone that they can't use UVB. I never said that. I simply said that lack of UVB lighting is not what caused that tortoise to grow a deformed, pyramided shell, and people shouldn't keep blaming every little problem on poor lighting, because that isn't the problem. You can use UVB if you want, but I don't, and that doesn't mean that it is poor husbandry to raise reptiles without UVB.

Ah Frank Retes.
Yes he has been around forever & I respect his opinion.
I do not believe UVB DIRECTLY affects pyramiding one way or the other but I do believe it is important for normal tortoise health. Just as humans are positively affected by exposure to some UVB, most diurnal reptiles also respond to the correct amount of sunlight or artificial UVB,
I do agree that over feeding & too much protein that was blamed for pyramiding is not the main/only cause for the problem. I agree with the article on the importance of hydration / humid hide spots during early years of tortoises for proper health.
But I also believe most tortoises evolved in high UVB environments & need a certain amount of UVB for their health.
Sure they can ***exist*** without it but they never reach their potential in many areas. Just as sickly never been in the sun vampires & goth children do not represent human health.
sickly UVB starved goth child

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this issue then. I have had nothing but good luck with my tortoises with standard incandescent and halogen lighting. They grow like weeds, eat like crazy every day of the week, and reproduce like it's nobody's business (maybe it isn't ), so I'm happy with those results.

So I guess there's nothing to be arguing about.

The diet was certainly not ideal although it wasn't as bad as some of the "dog food" cases many of us may have seen. It was getting mostly romaine and vitamin supps, with some other veggies. So while it was far from "ideal" the diet could have been worse. I am sure diet and setup (inability to burrow for better humidity) and lack of UVB all played a roll here. But I would pin lack of UVB as the main cause, and diet/setup as additional causes.
-jesse

>>What was this poor animal fed, beans and dogfood? Whoever kept it did a terrible job raising it. Diet, illumination, and probably even housing arrangements were unsatisfactory. I'm surprised an animal like that could survive. Just goes to show you that he/she's a toughie, putting up with that kind of husbandry.
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Jesse Rothacker
Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary
www.forgottenfriend.org

I personally think you have that backwards. I havn't spent years raising Tortoises, but I have raised and bred several Geckos/Iguanids/Chameleons/other lizards that should, according to the mainstream, have to have had UVA/UVB. I didn't provide any then, and I don't provide any now. Improper basic husbandry ( mainly humidity and hydration ) is the cause of what your seeing, and has nothing to do UV rays. Does anyone even have hard evidence that a Tortoise shell or other part can absorb any type of UV exposure?

humidity,? to much to little? It wont cause what that tort.has. hydration,does not cause deformed shell growth,they die with out it in their food or drinking.Some giant reptiles,like big pythons,tortoises will live INSPITE of bad captivity.There are many chronicly ill reptiles in captivity that live and reproduce for decades.Some wild animals have survived unbelievable mishaps in their life.I had a wild box turtle named Scrap Iron,who had been shot run over,and had his beak cut off some how,not to menshion the wrong amount of toes on three feet.He looked a hundred years old.He ruled the roost.Anyone ever seen the picture of the adult Snapping Turtle that got cought in a small plastic ring that goes to a milk or gator aid bottle when it was a baby.The animal is 2" around in the middle were the ring is and normal on eather side.And they say reptiles are fragile. Vic

humidity is the cause of pyramiding. I just put this in another post, it's from the february issue of reptiles magazine:

"Information now suggests that raising baby tortoises in bone-dry conditions doesn't allow their expanding shells to grow properly. Lack of ambient moisture, which juvenile tortoises would typically experience in burrows or under ground debris, seems to be the problem. This relatively new recognition will hopefully result in fewer sulcatas - and other species - resembling walking hand grenades."

However, this is not new information. It's information that has been around for years.

Just because its in Reptile Mag.doesnt make it the unquestionable truth.I read it,I know and respect the person that wrote it.Empirical evadence is not in.Tell me why the Sir Lanka Star Tortoises has a pyramided shell in nature and the Indian star does not. No Humidity in India.Vic

I used reptiles' because it is a common publication that you would recognize, but truly, it is fact that pyramiding is caused by environmental humidity. There have been studies done on this. Example: http://www.petsparade.co.uk/articles/?a=78

So quit arguing about something you have not researched. If you still don't believe me, than try it for yourself. Get a group of hatchling torts and raise them in varying humidity levels. It doesn't matter what kind of lighting they have, the ones kept in higher humidity will have less pyramiding.

Oh, and Arid-dwelling tortoises spend the vast majority of their time in burrows...away from the sun, but surrounded by humid air.

Geez...this has become less a thread about UVB and more a thread disputing something that has already been proven (the cause of pyramiding).

Empirical evidence.....good one,lets see,your quoted statement said "seems to be the cause" yea,thats outstanding proof.Maybe its globel warming. get "used"to it, you the man.

The problem is, you don't understand your reptiles, and you're attempting to sound like you do. I gave you empirical evidence because you're too dense to understand that I have learned this information before I found empirical evidence. This has nothing to do with global warming, because that's still speculation. This has to do with something that is known and understood. If you ever once took the time to do your own research (meaning trying different things and not just doing as the caresheets tell you), you might learn something about the reptiles you keep. Until then, I'd rather not argue about this with you, because you are obviously afraid of learning anything.

I think that's the problem with society in general. People are afraid to learn anything because by acknowledging that they have learned something, one is acknowledging that he or she did not know something.

P.S. You don't even need to research this fact (about pyramiding) on the web. Just try it yourself. Try raising a tort in a dry enclosure, and another in a humid enclosure. Feed them the same thing and keep their lighting the same. It will become obvious.

Bill, I'm really surprised you could say this having raised tortoises as long as you have. This uvb marketing craze only started not too long ago and I know for a fact that tortoises can be raised without uvb. Is it the best way?... no but it can be done very successfully.

>>Do you have photos of an animal raised as you described (with Ca and D3 but no UVB) to prove what you are saying? I ask this because I really doubt that you are correct in this statement. It is natural for 99% of tortoises to get UVB rays daily in the wild. Any husbandry technique which purposely avoids giving them any UVB at all and trying to substitute dietary supplements for the necessary UVB cannot work over a long term IMHO.
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Well, I guess I am still just trying to do things "the best way" for my animals. I bought my first tortoise in 1958 and have had them ever since, and I stand by my previously stated opinions.

I have yet to see any photos proving how great these animals raised without UVB look (I really asked that of the poster who said he uses NO UV light at all), nor have I heard or seen any proof that they are reproductively active. The great thing about tortoises is that they can stay alive for great periods of time under very adverse conditions. Does this mean they are healthy as well? No, just not dead (yet).

If you want pics, send me an email. I couldn't get them up on my kingsnake account because they need to be resized, and I'm too lazy.

Email me...I assure you there are pics. They are impressive animals I can send you pics of my large adult russians (purchased as subadults), and I can show you a couple I raised from hatchlings. One was hatched from my largest female (and I am glad I held him back). He was born in november and has so far gone from 1" (the size of a quarter) to about 3". My male is less than two years old (purchased as a 1" hatchling), and he is 5", and super aggressive with the females. I have to keep him seperate when I'm not breeding them because he will go at it all day long. One day I watched him he just kept switching back and forth between females over the course of a few hours. He is very rambunctious. Maybe I'll get some pics of him mounting my biggest female. That's pretty funny, because she's twice the length of him, and I think about 4 times the weight of him at the moment.

So I will send you pics if you want them. that offer is on the table. I'll even email you, then you can email me back and I'll send them as an attachment. I'm not afraid to show off my torts. They are great

The point I'm trying to make is that uvb is not a necessity. Twenty years ago what did you use when you wintered your tortoises indoors?

Yes, sunshine is beneficial but is it a necessity. When I first started pushing the mercury vapor lamps on tortoise people I got argument after argument that it did no good for the animals. I noted that there was a marked improvement in activity level. Is that a benefit?... It might seem so but is it a necessity?... I don't think so. Tortoises have been raised and bred without the bulb for well over a hundred years.

I still recommend that they be used although I don't use them myself right now. With the proper diet and supplements I know a tortoise can be raised very well indoors.

This opinion is not offered as an argument but as an objective observation.

>>Well, I guess I am still just trying to do things "the best way" for my animals. I bought my first tortoise in 1958 and have had them ever since, and I stand by my previously stated opinions.
>>
>>I have yet to see any photos proving how great these animals raised without UVB look (I really asked that of the poster who said he uses NO UV light at all), nor have I heard or seen any proof that they are reproductively active. The great thing about tortoises is that they can stay alive for great periods of time under very adverse conditions. Does this mean they are healthy as well? No, just not dead (yet).
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

man, if you think that was caused just from no UVB, you need to learn more about your reptiles. I've raised four tortoises without any UVB, and they are healthy with perfect shells. Pyramiding is caused by dehydration, and soft shells are caused by poor diet (not enough calcium).

Do you have pics of your tortoises that have never had UVB? I'd be interested in seeing them.

How long have they lived without UVB, how big are they, what species?

I have seen several cases of deformed shells coming from lack of UVB. Although there are always lurking variables I still believe UVB is THE leading cause for improper bone/shell development in herbivorous herps.

>>man, if you think that was caused just from no UVB, you need to learn more about your reptiles. I've raised four tortoises without any UVB, and they are healthy with perfect shells. Pyramiding is caused by dehydration, and soft shells are caused by poor diet (not enough calcium).
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Jesse Rothacker
Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary
www.forgottenfriend.org

Just give me a day on the pics (friday is a busy night for me as I'm a professional drummer). But I will post them.

They are russians. Two of them are already adults, and they were given to me almost fully grown. The largest female is now 8" or just slightly over (very large for a russian). The other female is almost 7", and my male is almost 5" (I raised him from a 1.5" hatchling that I got november 2005). My little one was born here in november and is almost 3" already.

They all have great shells, with the exception of my rescue (the smaller of the two females), but that's because she wasn't fed properly by her former owners, so I got her over the summer as a 5.5" tort, and she managed to grow 2" of nice shell since then. I'm not saying they are perfect by any means, but they have less pyramiding than I have seen on almost any other captive raised testudo.

I will surely get some pics. Looking at my posts I realize I came off sounding like a dick (I was writing a research paper and going mental at the time), so I apologize if I made any waves. I unintentionally word things poorly sometimes.

Have a nice day.

While I agree there are many variables that control pyramiding with hydration being an important one, Access to UVB is still essential to the well being of a tortoise whether through direct sunlight or quality UVB lighting.

If your Russians were nearly grown when you got them, this would explain the non-pyramided carapace as it I believe it is the first few crucial years that control whether a tortoise gets pyramiding or not. Just my opinion.

My females were nearly grown. My other two I have raised from hatchlings. If you're going to post you need to first gain a full understanding of the situation.

You also need to experiment for yourself and see what works. UV bulbs are not essential, and I know this from personal experience. Proper hydration, temperature, and diet (all three of which I see neglected by many UV users) are the most important variables.

Sorry no pics yet. I've had a busy weekend. I will try to get some uploaded shortly.

And you still haven't offered any evidence even antecdotal.

I have only raised tortoises for approx 12 years.
I have experimented. I do believe pyramiding is caused by by a mixture of many different factors including proper hydration & humidity.
However I still believe UVB is important to the welfare of tortoises. Please read that statement again - it goes beyond your statement concerning pyramiding.

Stop being so combative - life is too short!

I forget to mention I have raised over 30 tortoises from hatchlings so I have had a chance to experiment with tortoise husbandry.
I am far from an expert just an amatuer who believes your "tortoise don't need UVB" statement is reckless & baseless.

I have kept quiet on this topic because no scientific evidence has been documented. I do agree that many tortoises need UVB. We try to provide the best possible habitat for our little (sometimes huge) friends, in the wild most species of torts spend hours in the sunlight absorbing the sunds powerful rays. The metabloic processes that help convert sunlight into D3 and further calcium absoarption are quite complex, and they are this way for a reason. These animals would not have evolved such a complex system for utilizing sunlight if it was not necessary. And by the way, Ryan, how long have you been raising torts? You have argued in previous posts that your russians dont have any pyrimiding, how often have you ever seen a russian with pyrimiding? Not trying to attack your character like you have done to so many on this site. We are all here trying to help eachother, not argue with eachother.

poor guy/gal.
i got UVB on every turtle/tortie i keep. plus Ben, my RT, has an outdoor enclosure along with indoors for sleepin time.
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Buslady of SoCal
Breeder of Ornate Wood Turtles
Rhinoclemmys Pulcherrima Manni
Mom: Jessie; Dad: Donatello
Kids: Steve, Leo, Bender, Herbie, And baby 5