Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

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MiriPiri
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Joined: 05 Feb 2022, 10:23

Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by MiriPiri » 05 Feb 2022, 12:11

Hi

I don’t understand this thermostat and could do with some help please. I’ve used it for a few years and wanted to adjust the settings and have totally mucked it up. My ex husband initially set it up, but I can’t ask him for help.

I’ve moved house and have just built a potting shed for my Hermann that has a sleeping/hibernation box inside with a tubular heater that I want to plug into the thermostat. What should the thermostat settings be please? Also, the thermostat is in the house whilst I try and understand it. It’s current temp screen has 2 decimal points so it says 1.9.9 C for 19 C. Does this mean it’s faulty and needs replacing? If not, what do I set the minimum temperature to be and where would the decimal point go?

I’m totally confused and can’t work out if I’m being thick or if there’s a genuine problem. Any help would be great thank you.

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Nina
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Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by Nina » 05 Feb 2022, 12:54

Hi MiriPiri and welcome to The Tortoise Table,

I don't think you are being thick at all, but I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with this particular heat controller/thermostat (although it looks to be a good one). I have found this on the Ink Bird Website:
https://inkbird.com/products/itc-306t
and here is the page with their contact details: https://inkbird.com/pages/contact
Unfortunately they have a notice to say they are out of office (celebrating Chinese New Year) from 31 Jan - 7 February, but that means they should be back on Monday or Tuesday and you could maybe contact them (and perhaps send in a screen shot of the odd reading on your thermostat) to ask if it is faulty.

I think my instinct is that if it is reading 1.9.9C then it is faulty. Do you have a thermometer in the potting shed so that you can measure the actual temperature? Is it around 19C?

I'm not sure where you live, but if you're in the UK, then you should probably bring your tortoise indoors for the time being, as we are due some very cold nights, and daytime temps are cold too, and if your potting shed isn't well insulated then your tubular heater might not be sufficient to keep it warm enough for your tortoise. It's a bit difficult to advise, as i'm not sure what your potting shed is like. Does it have a bulb for light, UVB and heat, or is the tubular heater in the box just for when the tortoise is sleeping or hibernating?

Is the tortoise just sleeping at night there, and in a warm indoor tortoise enclosure in the daytime, or is he hibernating there now? If he is awake but sleeping in the shed then the temperature probably shouldn't fall below about 15C at night (and it needs to be about 30C directly under the heat source in the daytime). If he is hibernating there, then the ideal hibernation temperature is 5C, and a safe range is from about 2C or 3C to about 8C. If the temperature drops to 0C or just above then soft tissues can freeze, and if it gets up to 10C for more than a day or so then he will start to wake from hibernation and begin to use up body fat.

So sorry that my advice is confusing, and I hope we can help you to sort this out, so if there is any more information you can provide, that would be great.

Best wishes,
Nina

MiriPiri
Posts: 36
Joined: 05 Feb 2022, 10:23

Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by MiriPiri » 05 Feb 2022, 15:26

Thank you for your reply Nina. Herbella isn’t in the shed yet and is hibernating at my mother’s house as I want it all set up and running smoothly before she moves in.The potting shed is an upgrade on her previous house which was L shaped - a ‘bedroom’ with thermostat and tubular heater with soil floor and felted roof and a ‘sitting room’ with soil floor, glass roof and UV lamp as well as a door to outside. She will now have a potting shed with soil floor and UV lamp with her old ‘bedroom’ inside it as a sleeping box. The ‘sitting room’ part has been removed. She’s about 17 and I’ve had her for about 10 years. Previously she lived in a house and never hibernated. Since being with me she has hibernated well every year and lost very little weight so I’m hoping that’ll continue. The set up seems to work for her, but I have toyed with idea of a hibernation fridge.

Thank you for the info about Ink Bird, I’ll email them now and see what they say. The thermostat is in the house at the moment and the house is at about 19 C so I think the actual temp is correct it just has an extra decimal point which is weird.

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Nina
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Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by Nina » 05 Feb 2022, 17:58

It sounds to me like you've got excellent set-ups and everything well in hand, so I hope you can get the thermostat sorted out.

Most of us now do fridge hibernate, especially as the weather has become even more unpredictable (warm spells in the middle of winter can be as bad as prolongued freezing), and you can control the temperature so much better. If you ever want information on any type of hibernation I can send you links to guides on box hibernating, fridge hibernating, preparing for hibernation (which is called 'winding down' and is the most important part), as well as waking from hibernation. Just let me know.

And I do love the name Herbella!

Nina

MiriPiri
Posts: 36
Joined: 05 Feb 2022, 10:23

Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by MiriPiri » 06 Feb 2022, 09:26

Hi Nina, yes I’m happy to have links for any info please. The system I use seems to work well for Herbella and she seems healthy and happy and chooses when she winds down and hibernates. I just go with her rhythm. There’s been one winter when she woke up early, ate for a couple of weeks, wound down and then hibernated again for a few weeks. Is that a bad thing for her? She fine, didn’t loose too much weight and was raring to go in the spring. I always have the heat lamp on for a bit each day and food and water in case she wakes up and check the food dish daily for signs of movement. I don’t tend to check Herbella too often as I worry about disturbing her. If I’m doing it all wrong please tell me and any advice is great please.

MiriPiri
Posts: 36
Joined: 05 Feb 2022, 10:23

Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by MiriPiri » 06 Feb 2022, 09:26

Hi Nina, yes I’m happy to have links for any info please. The system I use seems to work well for Herbella and she seems healthy and happy and chooses when she winds down and hibernates. I just go with her rhythm. There’s been one winter when she woke up early, ate for a couple of weeks, wound down and then hibernated again for a few weeks. Is that a bad thing for her? She fine, didn’t loose too much weight and was raring to go in the spring. I always have the heat lamp on for a bit each day and food and water in case she wakes up and check the food dish daily for signs of movement. I don’t tend to check Herbella too often as I worry about disturbing her. If I’m doing it all wrong please tell me and any advice is great please.

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Nina
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Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by Nina » 06 Feb 2022, 16:48

Hi MiriPiri,

It's good that you are following Herbella's lead regarding winding down and hibernating. The main thing about winding down is that it is very important that the tortoise goes into hibernation with no food in its stomach, as that can go bad and produce gases that harm or kill the tortoise. So we recommend a period of two to four weeks (depending on the weight of the tortoise), with no food before entering hibernation. It's OK if they have food in their gut (and some tortoises will have a poo in hibernation), but not in their stomach.

Usually we don't advise letting a tortoise wake up, eat, and then go back to sleep, as if they wake up properly they use up their annual allocation of glycogen (it's a chemical that is released into their blood stream when they wake up properly and gives them a shot of energy to get going again), and if they use that up and then go back to sleep there can sometimes be problems -- but it sounds like Herbella did quite well with it so she obviously knows what she is doing.

The fact that she doesn't lose much weight in hibernation indicates that she is doing well. I know you said you have the lamp on for a bit each day, in case she wakes up, but does that affect the temperature in the area in which she is hibernating? You do want a temperature of around 5C for the duration of the hibernation (2C - 8C is fine), but if it is warmer for any length of time then that could be a problem as she might not wake up properly but still start using up body fat. Still, having said all that, you have been hibernating her successfully for 10 years, so it sounds like you are doing things right.

Here's a link to the info on winding down: https://www.tortoise-protection-group.o ... cedure.pdf
Here's a link to fridge hibernation: https://www.tortoise-protection-group.o ... Sept16.pdf
Here's a link to box hibernation (which I think it what you are doing now): https://www.tortoise-protection-group.o ... OV2016.pdf
Here's a link to information on waking up: https://www.tortoise-protection-group.o ... 080608.pdf

So that is the accepted advice, but please don't think that you are 'doing it all wrong', because you've been successfully hibernating her for a long time, she doesn't lose much weight, and she wakes up raring to go -- sounds like you're doing something right to me!

Nina

MiriPiri
Posts: 36
Joined: 05 Feb 2022, 10:23

Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by MiriPiri » 06 Feb 2022, 17:58

Thank you. Herbella stops eating about 4-6 weeks before hibernating as spends more and more time inside and then eventually just stays inside in hibernation. TBH she does it all herself and I just follow her lead. The lamp in her old house may have been an issue with temperature but it’s further away from the hibernation box in her new potting shed.

I’ve been playing with the thermostat, warming it in my hand and putting the probe in the freezer etc. It’s holding the same temp as my thermometer, but the decimal point is in the wrong place. I’ve set the minimum temperature at .5 and the thermostat turns on at 5c. It’s a bit weird but it is working. Do you think set at 5c with a 1.5 degree differential is ok? Thank you for being so brilliant and answering all my questions.

MiriPiri
Posts: 36
Joined: 05 Feb 2022, 10:23

Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by MiriPiri » 06 Feb 2022, 17:58

Thank you. Herbella stops eating about 4-6 weeks before hibernating as spends more and more time inside and then eventually just stays inside in hibernation. TBH she does it all herself and I just follow her lead. The lamp in her old house may have been an issue with temperature but it’s further away from the hibernation box in her new potting shed.

I’ve been playing with the thermostat, warming it in my hand and putting the probe in the freezer etc. It’s holding the same temp as my thermometer, but the decimal point is in the wrong place. I’ve set the minimum temperature at .5 and the thermostat turns on at 5c. It’s a bit weird but it is working. Do you think set at 5c with a 1.5 degree differential is ok? Thank you for being so brilliant and answering all my questions.

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Nina
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Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 11:22

Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by Nina » 06 Feb 2022, 23:01

I think I'm not quite understanding the temperatures you're setting.

When you say you're setting the 'minimum temperature at .5C, does that mean that if it goes down to .5 the thermostat will come on? If so then I think that is too low, as thermostats can easily be a degree or so out, and it depends on where the thermostat is located in relation to the tortoise (even a few inches away can make a difference), so I would say that it should go on if the temperature drops to 2C.

But then you said the thermostat turns on at 5c, so I wasn't sure how that related to the minimum being .5C. You really don't wan't any heat going on at 5C because that will make it warmer than you want. Did you mean that the thermostat will turn the heat off when it reaches 5C?

Really sorry, and I'm probably being stupid here, but I didn't understand setting the minimum at .5C and the thermostat turning on at 5C (so many apologies if I've got it wrong).

Nina

MiriPiri
Posts: 36
Joined: 05 Feb 2022, 10:23

Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by MiriPiri » 10 Feb 2022, 15:00

Hi

I’ve set it so that it stays between 5-7C with a differential of 0.5 so maybe I should set the minimum to 5.5C. There is a probe that sits at soil level right beside where Herbella sleeps so it’s probably no more than 2cm away from her.

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Nina
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Re: Ink Bird ICT-306T Help Please

Post by Nina » 10 Feb 2022, 22:22

That sounds fine, and should work well. If it were me, I think I would set it to stay between 4C and 7C (or even between 3C and 8C). 5C is the ideal temperature, but we usually say that the range of temps should be from about 3C to 8C. I think that 4C - 7C is fine though, but maybe the minimum could be set below 5.5. The main problem we have these days is short periods of time when the temperature stays above 8C or 9C for any length of time and the tortoise starts to wake up, so just keep an eye out for that.
Happy hibernating!

Nina

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