Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am about to purchase a sulcuta tortoise and i am planning to keep it in a 10 gallon tank with timothy hay, a flower pot for shleter, a jar lid for it to soak in, and a lightbulb for a heat source. I was wonderin if i could keep it outside for 30 minutes a day instead of buying a uv light. I plan to feed it romaine lettuce, Mustard greens, collard greens, and an assortment of edible weeds. would the timothy hay as substrate provide my tortoise with enough fiber? i also plan to sprinkle supplement on its food.

if this isnt acceptable for a juvenile please tell me, and if there is anything else wrong about my setup please tell me.
-----
1 Albino Cranwell
2 Red Eared Sliders
2 African Clawed Frogs

Do you know how big this 'juvenile' is?
I would imagine, that it might be a problem to establish a temperature gradient in a container as small as 10 gallon...

it will be about 4 inches long. i will be using a lightbulb for heat. can i leave it outside for 30-45 minutes a day so it can get uv rays?
-----
1 Albino Cranwell
2 Red Eared Sliders
2 African Clawed Frogs

Why is it you dont just get a UVB bulb ?

i could buy one, but i heard natural sunlight would be better. i really wanna know if i could keep my baby sulcata outside for 40 minutes a day instead of buying the light.
-----
1 Albino Cranwell
2 Red Eared Sliders
2 African Clawed Frogs

True natural light is much better but it would be very wise to go ahead and have a UVB light as well set up as a back up.
As far as a ten gallon Glass aquarium, do yourself a favor and set it outside and check out what the hot end and the cooler end is.
I would not suggest this set up as glass passes heat easy and to have one end at 110 and another at 80 or below will be very hard to do. The trick is to give them choices.

I will take a pic for you a little later of my set up that I used before I have things set up for mine outside.
It cost about 15 dollars ( not including light and heat and humid hide)

I have a few aquariums here but after reading I put them back into storage and went with this:

Simple under the bed storage unit that fits under the bed, found at K-mart/ lowes for about 10 bucks.

The top was solid so I cut the inside out with a pair of siccors and then used a dremmel to smooth out the edge. Then I attached hardware cloth and held it in place with screws and wingnuts. These steps were done because I have cats, otherwise I would have not done any of this and just left the top off.

Shot inside also have a humid hide that cost about 4 bucks and humidity running into it that added about 15/20 more dollars.

The whole set up was about 35 dollars.

I can get one side to 80 degrees and the other up to about 110 which gives my little guy a few choices.

Hope this may give you some ideas...

can you be a little more specific on how you set up your humid hide? thanks.

Yes.. Tomorrow I will write it up for you, I have almost gone 3 days straight with now sleep..
I want it to be as detailed for you as I can make it and I will include pics too..

n/p