Cleaning My Tortoise Enclosure & Setup

hey guys welcome back to my channel okay so for today's video as you guys can see by title we are gonna be doing a huge clean and Blues enclosure this is actually the first really big clean with like a full substrate change that I've actually done for blue in the six months that have had him obviously I spot clean daily and weekly so I'm constantly picking out little poops and old food and things like that but today we are gonna be doing a big clean because I really think that it needs one and I bought a bunch of new substrate so we're gonna be doing that today I have decided to switch to rep debark so you guys know that he is on eco earth right now but I'm really sick of it it's extremely dusty and while I do keep it kind of misted once a day I'll lightly mist it or maybe all like put some water in there and then I'll mix around with my hands it still dries out incredibly fast and it is leaving like a layer of dust on everything that's just kind of help it go or is if you're not keeping it super super moist obviously with the Herman's tortoise I can't keep it super Dan all the time because that's not good for him so I dig out and I bought two bags of rep D bark which is also safe for tortoises so I'm gonna be putting that in there I am gonna leave a little bit of the eco earth just to kind of soften the wreck to bark up a little bit and to also minimize that dust but I'm definitely ready for a substrate chain a lot of people recommend it a lot of different substrates which are safer tortoises like forest floor bedding I have seen that unfortunately when I went to go buy some there was only one bag left and I really needed two bags so I didn't get it it was also extremely moist and that did kind of worry me because Herman's tortoises can't have that much moisture and that bag was really really wet so I didn't get it tortoises can also do really well on organic top soil which is very similar to eco earth but I'm really worried about the organic top soils that I have here locally I don't know what's in them I know that they still do have fertilizer in them but it may be like an organic fertilizer but then I'm like okay what kind of a compost is that made up of I really don't know and I'm honestly too paranoid of a person to just guess and try one and I have not been suggested a brand yet or nowhere to find one that I know is 1,000% safe so until I can find an organic topsoil which I'm always on the hunt for if you guys have any suggestions feel free to leave down below I'm just gonna be using rep D Bart and a little bit of eco earth right now that is safe for him and I have no worries about putting him on ref debark and a little bit of eco Earth it's fine it will work but of course I am always on the search for the perfect substrate for him and there are so many substrate choices there are a variety of different substrates that are safe for tortoises pretty much anything that doesn't say soaking wet and that is small enough where they won't swallow it or anything like obviously you wouldn't want to use sand or something like that pretty much anything that they won't get impacted on is safe I don't have a problem with Blu he doesn't eat his substrate or anything so that's definitely not a worry but yeah we are gonna be doing a huge plane I feel like I've been rambling forever so let's get started what are you doing are you sleeping under your plant you're so funny you so cute which is you in tow okay guys so here we are we are gonna be cleaning a massive clean on blues enclosure today so here is blues enclosure as you can see it is a mess right now it looks really rough because I've been spot cleaning it every day every week but as you can see he's managed to pull up a lot of the trash bag that kind of lines the bottom underneath the Eco Earth he's managed to pull a lot of it up and then I'll find it flipped over he's been climbing underneath of it so I definitely I'm just gonna take the trash bag out completely it was serving as a moisture barrier but it's gonna stink not to have that in there I'm not gonna replace it I'm just gonna take it out completely today we're also gonna throw away a lot of this eco worth because you know it's got poopy remnants and food remnants and things we're just gonna take it out and then replace the substrate because he needs more substrate really badly he has a little bit of dry weeds here from yesterday which will just clean all that off will clean his slate completely we got to give him more water this is yesterday's water it's not too bad but we are gonna replace that the dust on everything in here is honestly driving me insane you can see this eco earth is really dusty and so we're gonna be replacing it and we're gonna be giving him some rep debark which i think is gonna help with this dust situation if you're wondering how quickly his water gets dirty this is how he just gets in there and he sits down and he tracks eco earth all through it you're so cute bub alright so the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna take his light down we don't need that up there right now then I'm gonna so clue while we're doing all of this all right you get to go in here and soak in your warm water while I clean your enclosure this is gonna be a mess oh my goodness please [Music] okay that was pretty painless so this is what we have left now there is a lot of eco words in here I'm probably not going to empty this completely because he doesn't eat in there so I don't think that the Eco word that's in his hide is messed up but out here is really my main concern I definitely see a lot of little puppies and you can see like there's pieces of old food that's dried up and things like that that's what we're mostly gonna focus on getting out not necessarily every last piece of eco Earth but just the bad pieces all right I think that's good I don't see any more poop any more greens or anything like that and as you can see this is a super super thin layer of eco earth I think I'm going to leave this in here just to soften up the repu bark since rocky bark is a little bit firmer than the eco earth and this is really soft here is the first bag of r FD bark that we're gonna add in now this is a smaller bag actually have a really big bag - we're gonna add both of them [Music] I think this is gonna be a lot better I really do now we're going to just mix this up really really well all right now we are going to wet this a little bit we're gonna make it pretty moist because I am trying to just minimize that dust I really hate the dust so we're going to try mix it up and then add a little bit of water to it yeah I think I already like this a lot better for him now if I can find some really good organic topsoil I do want to mix some of that in here with the eco herb and the rusty bark as well but I have yet to find a really good topsoil that I trust completely I'm just so paranoid and I don't want to take any chances and I know this is safe so that's what we're going to be using for right now his water dish [Music] and we have his slate for feeding which I usually put right here and then his cuddle balm which I just lay on his slate okay this is looking really good I really like this you can see he's been soaking for the 10 minutes that I've been filming this video so I went and got him some food today which I'm sure he's gonna want immediately you pooped what a good boy all right let's take this down all right so here is what the end result looks like as you can see his enclosure looks amazing now I'm absolutely loving this it looks so so so good the rep you bark is pretty moist it's a rep you bark eco Earth mix it's pretty moist I can feel it but a really good way to keep the moisture up with this is just to pour a little bit of water in there maybe once or twice a week and then mix it up with your hands and then once it starts to dry out again keep it moist because Herman's tortoises do need about 30 to 40 percent moisture obviously not too damp they cannot be intuitive conditions they will get a respiratory infection but this amount of moisture is probably really good if you dig down I can feel the moisture so it's really good I think that's gonna be good for him I did go pick him some weeds we have some plantains some dandelion and a little bit of romaine so I'm sure he's gonna be hungry look at that big poop you did a good good boy you look a boy you hungry here don't you go I knew you'd go straight for your food be such a good boy so yeah this is what it looks like it is all done I think it looks really good I think he's gonna enjoy it I know this is a pretty simple layout I do want to add some more things in here like I've thought about adding another piece of slate over there I've also thought about doing some other things but he destroys his enclosure like give him a day and this will not look like this he takes his water dish and he drags it over here and then he'll take the mushroom and he'll move it over here and then he'll take his plant and drag it around so because he just destroys his enclosure most of the time I don't really worry about adding in a bunch of day coring things because it does take away from his walk space which he does love to roam and walk and he'll go in there and turn around and come back out but another thing to remember is that I personally don't keep him in here all day every day we do go outside a lot I also take him in my living room and I let him walk around I take him on the couch with me so he's not in here a whole lot of the time so for the sake of Dacor I do think that this is good this is what he needs he has two hiding spots and then he has plenty of room to roam around his feeding slate his cuddle his water dish and then I'm gonna be hanging his light back up here he love that food huh such a good boy okay guys that is it for this video thank you guys so much for watching I hope you guys enjoyed watching me clean blue sand closure it definitely need it I hope that this repu Ark works out if you guys can think of a better substrate that doesn't stay too wet or too dry and dusty which is basically the Eco Earth and then I'm worried the forest floor bedding would be too wet if you guys have a better suggestion feel free to leave it down below I really appreciate it I also want to mention a lot of people did suggest in the orchid bark but orchid bark is very very very similar to red Demark so I just decided to go rugby bark because it's easier for me to find big bags of that but yeah if you guys have any suggestions I'm gonna see how this rep Demark works out I hope that I loved it I hope that it works good for him I appreciate you guys watching I'll see you guys in the next video be kind bye

Channel: Lori’s Hartland

Views: 57,389

Keywords: Cleaning My Tortoise Enclosure & Setup, hermanns tortoise, tortoise diet, tortoise enclosure setup, cleaning my tanks, huge tank setup, loris hartland, lori's hartland, tank clean, hamster tank clean, reptiles, bearded dragon, snakes, what to feed a tortoise, what to feed a turtle

Id: 2-VHGLMr8hg

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 11 2018