The schematic
A cutaway view of the finished enclosure — substrate layering, lighting, humidity hardware, planting plan, and probe placement.
Husbandry targets
Locked in before he moves in. Yellow-foots are forest-floor animals — deep moist substrate, dappled UVB, more fruit-tolerant and omnivorous than grassland tortoises.
- Basking surface
- 90–95°F
- Ambient (warm side)
- 80–85°F
- Cool side
- high 70s°F
- Night floor
- ≥ ~70°F (CHE kicks in)
- Humidity
- 80%+ (closed chamber)
- UVB
- 6% Forest, over basking side, UVI 1.0–3.0
The journey
Reading first, building second
We spent weeks reading — Tortoise Trust care sheets, the yellow-foot keeper communities, peer-reviewed husbandry papers, and the long-running Carl May / Tortoise Group references. Every choice in the build was cross-checked against at least two independent sources.
A closed-chamber, not a tank
Yellow-foots need ground, humidity, and dappled cover — not a desert tank. We picked a 180-gal front-opening Reptizoo and planned the screen top to be mostly covered so we can hold 80%+ humidity without drowning the airflow.
A bioactive substrate that drains
Four layers: LECA drainage, fiberglass screen barrier, 5–6" of cypress/coco/bio-bedding/soil mix, and an oak-leaf-litter top. Powder-orange isopods and springtails handle the day-to-day cleanup so the floor stays alive.
Lighting and heat, measured — not guessed
T5 HO 6% UVB over the warm side for UVI 1.0–3.0. A 100W halogen on a PID dimming thermostat lands a 90–95°F basking surface (verified with an IR gun, not the air sensor). A second thermostat runs a CHE for the ~70°F night floor.
Plants that are safe to eat — and ones we won't plant
Edible: dandelion, hibiscus rosa-sinensis, nasturtium, sempervivum, spider plants, bromeliads, ferns. All quarantined and repotted before planting. Hard no on pothos, philodendron, creeping fig, cranberry hibiscus, and asparagus fern.
Care logged, not remembered
Every feeding, soak, calcium dust, weigh-in, and equipment swap goes into our own app, Forage. Photos snapped in the app land on this site automatically.
Build-day checklist
The order matters — drainage before substrate, cure before livestock, stable temps before move-in.
- Drainage → mesh → mixed substrate (5–6") → leaf litter on top
- Silicone the cork wall; cure 24–72 hrs with airflow until no vinegar smell before he's anywhere near it
- Mount UVB over warm side; set basking halogen on the Reptizoo thermostat to 90–95°F; set CHE thermostat to a ~70°F night floor
- Quarantine / rinse / repot all plants; let new growth come in before grazing
- Run the enclosure 1–2 days and confirm temps + 80%+ humidity hold before Shelldon moves in
- Seed isopods + springtails; spot-clean by hand until they establish
- First weigh-in + shell-length measurement → log in Forage
Build videos
Time-lapses and walk-throughs from the live build. New episodes drop as each phase wraps.
Live build journal
Day-by-day entries — photos, what went well, what we'd do differently. We'll publish each step from inside the Forage app as we work through it.