Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone ever kept a Russian Tortoise in a kiddy pool? Put some substrate, clamp on a heat light, and give it a hide log?
just an idea.

I have a kiddie pool in the backyard for my Russian, with lots of plants he likes to eat and a hiding area for the hotter parts of the day. I realize this is not the biggest enclosure for him, though, and hope to build him a larger outside home as soon as possible. I like to give him a few hours to explore the yard as well, since there's only so much to see in the pool. He comes indoors at night because the weather is so variable here (WI). If you used a kiddie pool as an indoor enclosure, how would you give your tortoise access to UV light? There's probably a solution I haven't thought of, anyway. Good luck

The new UVB mercury vapor bulbs put out a level of UVB similar to that of shade in the summer. I'm not aware of any other readily available bulbs with higher output other that some that might be purchased through hydroponics dealers such as wormsway.com. In a 10" ceramic heat/light reflector at roughly 12-18" you can create a very nice size basking area. Because of the relatively low UVB output (as compared to natural unfiltered light) you have to extend the lighting time to about 12 hours per day. My sulcata like a basking area of 85-100 degrees though not sure what Russians need or prefer. I think a bigger challenge would be convincing my wife that a small blue pool goes with the decor!

This is his indoor home.
It's on a third floor enclosed porch (so needless to say, it's warm) and has access to natural sunlight. i'm setting up a clamp light with a basking bulb, but he has a flower pot on it's side for a hide also. does this sound good?

i plan on getting a little "portable fench" type deal and taking him out with me when we go swimming and stuff. (leaving him on land of course) so he gets outside time in the grass and stuff. I live in Connecticut, and we're having a crappy summer, so i can't give him a permanent outdoor home.

thanks,
me

What about Winter? If not already prepared you will need a good plan for Winter accomodations including lighting and food. There are some nice pictures of quite decorative turtle tables for Russians and similar sized species. It may be worthwhile investing in this type of accomodation that could be moved out to your porch (I'm assuming this is a third floor apartment)during better weather and sit in the corner of your living room at other times. The construction is very simple and could be had for well less than $50. Spent my day with a bunch of boyscouts and cubscouts so the "Be prepared" motto seems to be echoing in this note. Sorry.

You may want to go to this site to look at taking advantage of your cold climate to promote natural hibernation cycles.

http://www.geocities.com/carolinatortoises/russiancare.html