Leopard Tortoise Setup

Building your Leopard Tortoise Setup

It's very easy to construct this leopard tortoise setup. The vivarium and cabinet come with instructions and should take around 20 minutes per unit to construct. They mostly use locking screws so don't worry if you make a mistake, they can be taken apart and re-built. Once the vivarium is constructed you will need to seal the joints inside with aquarium sealant. This will extend the life of your vivarium and keep the joints water resistant. Make sure the panels are all clean and dry as possible before applying. Once applied you should leave the enclosure for at least 6 hours so the silicone can set and the fumes can disperse.

For the following sections cables for each piece of equipment will be fed through the vents at the top of your enclosure's back wall. The Vivexotic range now include removable vents large enough to fit the entire plug through so you should not need to re-wire any plugs.

Creating the Basking Area

This enclosure is designed to get to 100 Fahrenheit on the hot end but still leave the other side cool. To do this you will want to choose one end of the enclosure to be your hot end and one end to be the cool end. All of your heating equipment needs to be placed in the hot end.

We provide our daytime basking temperatures using a single intense basking spot lamp controlled by a dimming thermostat. This should be fixed to the centre of the ceiling close to the warm side. Ideally we want 1/3 of the enlcoure to be hot so we would usually space the bulb out 3 inches from the side wall.

Once the lamp is fixed in place you can attach it to the thermostat outside of the enclosure. The dial should be set to 95f and its sensor should be placed 1/3 of the way from the warm end, a couple of inches above the floor.

Night time Heating

In this kit night time heating is provided by a ceramic heat emitter. These bulbs can be harmful so we need to make sure they are always guarded and controlled by the appropriate thermostat. The ceramic bulb screws into the ceramic lamp holder and is pinned to the ceiling using the ceramic heater guard. We try to situate this unit in the back corner of the hot side.

Once the lamp is fixed in place you can attach it to the thermostat outside of the enclosure. The dial should be set to 80f and its sensor should be placed 1/3 of the way from the warm end, a couple of inches above the floor.

Controlling Temperatures

The ideal day time basking temperature is 95-100 Fahrenheit so there is some wiggle room. Your lamp is controlled by a thermostat so it should automatically remain in this range. If you notice the lamp is always dimmed low you could reduce its wattage. If you find the lamp is always fully on and struggling to get to temperature you could increase its wattage.

At night the ceramic heat emitter will be controlled by a pulse proportional thermostat. Setting the thermostat up is very easy. Your thermostat will have 3 wires attached to a central box, on the central box is a dial with a list of temperatures around it's face. One of the wires ends in a plug, this is plugged into your power source. The second wire will end in a socket, you plug your ceramic heat emitter into this. The third wire ends in a sensor, this can be fed into the enclosure through one of the bottom vents and should be fixed in place around 1/3 of the way from the hot end and a few inches off the floor. On the face of the thermostat you will want to set it to 80 Fahrenheit. This should ensure that 1/3 of the enclosure will be around 80 Fahrenheit all night. As the unit will only turn on when temperatures drop below 80 Fahrenheit it can be left on all of the time.

Setting up the UVB

UVB is very important for reptiles as it allows them to produce their own vitamin D and use the calcium in their diet. Without the correct UVB levels some reptiles can become very poorly. All of the UVB in this setup is provided by a UV tube and reflector. To set this up you will need to open up your UV controller. Inside you should fine that it has one plug and two wires ending in connectors. Feed the connectors into the enclosure using the top vents and leave them dangling inside. Once they are in the enclosure you can fix the reflector to the ceiling. Simply screw the reflector into the ceiling as far back as possible leaving an inch on either end. The reflector is in a J shape, you want to fix it so the longest side (top of the J) is at the closest to the ceiling and facing toward the front of the enclosure.

Once this is in place you can attach the connectors to the tube and clip the tube into your reflector. T5 lamps are a little more difficult so you will need to remove the waterproof cap on the connector, place it onto the tube leaving yourself a few inches of space. You then line up the pins on the tube and connector then press in until you hear a small click. When you hear this click bring the cap down the tube making sure not to relieve pressure on the fitting and screw it in place. It needs to be very tight to ensure the connection is made.

The tube will deteriorate over time and need replacing. T8 lamps should be changed every 6 months while T5 lamps last 12 months.

Running the Enclosure

This setup is designed to provide an intense basking area and UV throughout the day and switch to complete darkness with some warmth at night. The basking lamps and UV tube should be on for 10-12 hours per day and off all night. When the basking lamps and UV tube have been turned off the vivarium will begin to cool down, when it gets below the set temperature your thermostat will turn on the ceramic and keep one side warm for you.

If you have any concerns or need any further advise please let us know.