Why are vivariums and glass tanks bad?

[mango]

I recently went to the home of a colleague for the first time, and was surprised to see that she had tortoises, as she’s never mentioned them before. She has 3 Hermanns, and they all live in a vivarium. I told her about this forum, and explained that Vivariums were not considered the best type of accommodation. She asked why, and I explained about the humidity. I told her about tortoise tables and told her I personally use guinea pig cages for when they are indoors, due to the dog.

She then showed me the viv. She said that she knew high humidity was bad. In each end of her viv she had a thermometer and another thing that measured humidity. Both ends read at 35, which according to the scale is definitely not humid. It’s a shop bought viv and has 2 big air vents every 12 inches or so.
The rest of her set up is pretty much the same as mine, with some hemp, sand and soil mix and some rocks. She has UVB strip lights and a heat spotlight.

This has got me thinking. Why is everybody so against vivs then? This clearly is not a humid environment. They were reading 35 and it’s not classed as being even moderate humidity until it gets to about 50.
I am only a beginner so I don’t really understand. Are there other reasons that make vivs so terrible? I am not thinking of taking mine out of their home and putting them into a viv, I am just really curious.

[carl20]

torts get stressed in vivs for at least two reasons,

1 at times they try and walk through the glass and this strsses them when they cannot, this then causes them to become dehydrated through trying.

2 they can see everything going on around them and the site of things moving about right near their faces can scare them, because they do not understand the glass protects them from this.

A viv where the glass starts much higher than the tort can see and with very good ventilation would probably not be too bad.

Also was there a bath in the viv, the torts should have a bath and if one wasnt in therre then one could cause the viv to be humid when put in.

[sarah]

What was she using to measure the humidity?

[mango]

I believe it's called a hygrometer that she had to measure humidity.

She does have a shallow tray of water in there for them to drink and bathe. They are also on weed only diet and she has them outside when it's warm. Her tortoises looked beautiful, much nicer shells than mine. She really seems to know what she's doing. It was just the viv part that threw me. I must admit that I didn't realise about the problems associated with them being able to see through the glass. That does make sense. Thanks.

[sandy]

They need the ventilation/aircirculation to stop the humidity getting to high.
Also as Carl says, its very stressing for tortoises to see the outside and not be able to get
out there.

[nina]

I think another reason why vivs are bad is because you can't get a good temperature variation in them. Because they are so enclosed, the temperature tends to be pretty much the same throughout the viv, whereas torts typically (depending on the species) need about 90 degrees at one end and 70 degrees at the other end. This enables the tort to select which temperature he would like to be at at any time.

Nina

[imported_Lowe]

Incidently, the hygrometers you see in pet shops are next to useless. Unless you've got a properly calibrated hygrometer (probably in the region of £80-100) you cannot say for sure that you're anywhere near accurate. I've seen hygrometers that wouldn't show anything above 50% despite being on a wet sodden surface!

Also, as nina said, you cannot get a good temperature gradient in a viv.

[Becks]

photos say it all this is my tort the day i got them kept in viv for all there life
and after being in a tort table for a while living with me ..




luv becks xxxx

[Eire_Ade]

That's a great transformation Becks, credit to you girl.

Your torotise looks so much more natural and must be happier he / she is in the correct environment.

Vivs are just hot stuffy glass boxes which really don't offer tortoises a healthy living environment.

I have noticed that since my tortoidses have been in their torty table they are much more active and the temperatures in the table vary from day to day depending on the ambiant temps and the weather we have so they have a more climatic environment in the table top which is probably as close to wild living as we can give them in a domestic home.

Ade