Tortoise Soaking: How Often, How Deep, How Warm, and How Long

Every tortoise and box turtle page here says the animal drinks and soaks often, and until now none of them said what that looks like in a bathroom. Two readers asked, one for sulcata hatchlings and one for red-footed tortoises generally, and the answer is the same routine with different numbers. This page carries the numbers: why a soak does something a water dish does not, the schedule by age and species, the depth, temperature and time, what to watch while the tortoise sits there, and the two mistakes that turn a hydration routine into a vet visit.

Why a Dish Is Not Enough

A water dish is an offer. A soak is a guarantee. LafeberVet's tortoise sheet puts the reason in one line: soaking encourages drinking, urination and defecation. A tortoise standing in warm water drinks, through the mouth and through the cloaca, and then empties itself, which is why a soak tub is where most keepers see their tortoise pass urates at all.

That matters because of where dehydration ends. VCA's tortoise disease page describes cloacoliths as an accumulation of urates, the crystalline portion of the urine, and says large ones block the cloaca, the port where intestinal and urinary tract excretions exit the body. A tortoise with one strains to pass a bowel movement, often vocalizing, and VCA calls it a true emergency, treated under sedation with pain relief and forceps. The stool and urates guide covers what the urate should look like before it gets there: chalky white and soft is hydrated, dry and granular is the warning. The soak is where you get to see it.

The Schedule, by Age and Then by Species

Age sets the baseline. Hatchlings dry out fastest and every source soaks them daily. LafeberVet soaks hatchlings daily and most adults about once a week, in warm, shallow water for 10 to 20 minutes. Between those two ends the species decides.

The sulcata figure is ReptiFiles' and it is the strictest on the table: hatchlings soaked in shallow, 85 to 95°F water for 20 to 30 minutes every day, no deeper than their elbows. The same sheet gives the reason to take it seriously. Babies hatch in the rainy season and spend most of their time in burrows far more humid than the desert above, and the best case for chronic dehydration is a pyramided shell, the worst case is death. The sulcata tank setup guide covers the humid hide that does the other half of that job, and ReptiFiles notes that a juvenile enclosure held above 80 percent humidity needs soaking less.

The Russian figure is also ReptiFiles': juveniles soaked in shallow, lukewarm water for 10 to 15 minutes twice a week. Adults of this species drop to the weekly baseline, which is where the Russian tortoise feeding guide's weekly soak for an indoor animal comes from.

The red-footed figure comes from Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital, whose care sheet wants a dish deep enough to cover the tortoise to its elbows when standing and large enough to maneuver in, and, where that dish cannot be provided, a soak of 10 minutes in lukewarm water two to three times a week. The species loves soaking and relieves itself in the bowl, which the clinic says means frequent changes, and the red-footed tortoise tank setup guide builds the whole enclosure around that dish and the humidity it holds.

Depth, Temperature and Time

Depth is the number that keeps a tortoise alive, and every source lands in the same place: shallow. ReptiFiles' rule for the dish is no deeper than the knees, and for the sulcata hatchling soak no deeper than the elbows. Either way the head stays clear of the water without the tortoise lifting it, and the animal can walk out. If the water reaches the line where the top shell meets the bottom one, it is at the limit.

Temperature is warm to the hand, never hot. Lukewarm is the word on the Russian and red-footed sheets, and the sulcata sheet gives 85 to 95°F, which is the top of the range for a species that lives on hot ground. A cold soak does nothing, since a chilled tortoise sits still and does not drink, and a hot one is a burn. Fill the tub a few degrees warm, since it cools while the tortoise sits in it, and top it up with warm water once during a long soak.

Time is 10 to 20 minutes for most, up to 30 for a hatchling or a red-foot, and the end of the soak is when the water has cooled or the tortoise has done what it came to do. A tortoise that drank and emptied in five minutes does not need the other fifteen.

What to Watch While It Sits There

A soak is a health check with a tub. Three things to look for:

• Drinking. The head goes down and the throat pumps. A tortoise that drinks hard at every soak is one whose enclosure is too dry, and the fix is the humidity, not more soaks.
• Urates. White and toothpaste-soft is right. Dry, gritty, yellow or absent over several soaks is the reading the stool and urates guide treats as extended dehydration, and the reason to book a vet before the cloaca blocks.
• Buoyancy and effort. A tortoise that floats tilted, cannot keep its head up in elbow-deep water, or strains and vocalizes is not having a normal soak. Straining with sound is VCA's cloacolith picture, and that is the emergency.

The Species That Break the Rule

A box turtle is the exception to scheduling. ReptiFiles' eastern box turtle sheet wants clean water available at all times, and says the turtles like to soak in it, so the water is replaced daily and the dish scrubbed weekly with an animal-safe disinfectant. A large flower pot saucer sunk into the substrate makes the dish, no deeper than the turtle's knees. The box turtle tank setup guide builds around that dish and the humid hide beside it, and a box turtle that uses both needs no separate soak. One that is never seen in its dish, or arrives dehydrated, gets the hatchling routine until it is.

A red-footed tortoise is the other end: it is scheduled like a juvenile for life, because its forest is wet and its skin and shell expect it. The red-footed tortoise health guide has dry, cool conditions as the husbandry mistake behind most of what goes wrong for the species.

What Goes Wrong

• The unattended soak. The tortoise climbs the tub wall, tips, and lands on its back in an inch of water. Stay in the room.
• Deep water. A tub filled past the elbows makes a tortoise swim, and a tortoise cannot swim. Shallow, every time.
• The kitchen sink. Soak water carries what the tortoise passed. The salmonella hygiene guide has the CDC and FDA both naming the kitchen sink and the shared bathtub as the two places never to soak an animal or wash its dish. A dedicated plastic tub, emptied into the toilet.
• Soaking instead of fixing the enclosure. A hatchling that needs a daily soak to stay hydrated in a dry tank is being rescued daily from its own housing. The soak is the floor. The humid hide and the substrate are the fix.

The Takeaway

Hatchlings daily, juveniles two or three times a week, adults of a dry-country species weekly and of a tropical species two to three times a week, a box turtle whenever it wants in a dish it can walk into. Elbow deep, warm to the hand, 10 to 30 minutes, and never alone. Watch what comes out, since the urates are the point.

Printable Guide

Want this as a printable reference? The Russian Tortoise Care Package turns this guide into a 38-page PDF you can keep by the enclosure, $8.99.

Sources & Further Reading