Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I haven't bought my first tortoise yet, just thinking about it. I live in an apartment, so it will have to stay indoors unless I take him to the park or something. I'm leaning towards getting either a Hermann's or a Russian or a Greek b/c I understand they have a dry habitat and I don't want to deal with the rainforest/misting/humidity thing. Plus, I don't want to deal with maintaining live plants any more than I have to. I work full time and go to college as well, so my time is limited. Any suggestions on the different species, substrate/habitat, and required care is welcome. So if I'm building an indoor enclosure, what size should I consider? I'm thinking 2-1/2 x 5, because I want to keep it in my living room so I can watch the little guy. Speaking of the enclosure, most descriptions of turtle tables suggest using polycarbonate for the sides, but one site I saw said that sight lines should be blocked b/c tortoises get confused about the 'glass' and will get stressed about it. Any thoughts? So now we move on to the heating subject. The electrical portion of the dome is either on or off (just as a computer uses 1 and 0) but a thermostat is adjustable, then are the two compatible? As for the non-basking area of the table, will my room temperature (70 degrees) be enough? If not, how do I manage that?

All 3 of the species you mentioned are good sized tortoise for people who don't want a large tort due to space constraint. Tortoises should have access to natural sunlight whenever possible. No artificial lighting can duplicate all the benefits they get from the sun. Russians do hibernate in the winter months, something to think about when deciding. Although these torts are from dry climate, they need to be able to dig and burrow, microclimate is important to their health. Glass aquariums are not suitable for tortoises, if they can see out, they will spend all day trying to get out that's why a tortoise table is best to house torts in.

As for lighting, other than the basking light you will also need to provide your tort with a good UV light such as the ReptiSun 5.0 or 10.0. You can connect your basking light to a rheostat if you are worried that the basking area gets too hot but I don't think it's necessary as long as your enclosure is large enough that the tort can go to the cooler side of the pen. This is why it's important to provide them with a large enough enclosure/pen. The basking area should be around 95 degrees and cool side should be about ~75 degrees.

Either soak your tort regularly or provide them with a water dish. Torts do drink! I soak my hatchlings daily, sub-adults & adults every 2-3 days.

HTH