thanks for your help it is nice to have mats to help me and im hoping i can get my tort a top table can you by them? or do you just make them ?are there hard to make? or where can you by them ? thanks

Your original question was about tap water wasn't it? I forgot about that yesterday. My torts bath and drink normal tap water and always have.

Tort tables can be bought on places like ebay, but they tend to be rather small and expensive for what they are. They are very easy to make, you could buy a bookcase ans take the shelves out, then just fix a piece of wood across the top for your basking light and UV. Or you can buy the wood and make it all yourself, all you need is a base, I wouldn't go any smaller than 4ft x 2ft for a small tort (bigger if the tort is older than say 3 years), but remember in the wild a tort would roam for miles so the bigger the better. Once you have a base you just need to fix four sides to it, about 8 inches deep so he can't climb out! And then rig something up for the basking and UV lights.

You can email me if you like and I will send you some pictures of my first tort tables. My email is hard.top.kids@ntlworld.com

Tortoises really don't need anything putting on their shells. I recently saw an older tortoise that had oil put on its shell for years, when the new owner FINALLY got all the built up oil residue off, the tortoise was a different and much lighter colour. As has been said by Jason, this can cause problems. Don't take our word for it visit the Tortoise Trust site, you will find many interesting and informative articles about tortoise care.

Tortoise Trust Web - Start Page

or the TLadys site, there is a good booklet to download for free
Tortoises