Posted by:
DC
at Mon May 19 18:44:35 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by DC ]
...my bluestar said,
"To talk of many things:
Of bulbs--and rocks--and basking temps--
Of feeder bugs that sting--
And why your rocks are boiling hot--
And whether Crots have wings."
Sorry Lewis.
...Are your rocks actually resting on the bottom glass of the viv? If you leave rocks of any size on the *surface* of the sand, your collareds WILL tunnel under them, and if one happens to shift a bit from being undermined, its going to trap and probably suffocate one of them.
The wattage of the bulb used for basking is not the issue, it is the observed temp on the surface of the basking rock that is important, and you will want to insure that the actual temp of the rock does not go high enough to cause scalding on your lizards more delicate underside. I use either a 75, 60, or 50 watt full spectrum halogen spot for mine, and substitute the different wattages to compensate for the changes in room ambient which varies with the seasons. I also use a UTH connected to a home-made rheostat (dimmer switch) to keep the "substrate" on the warm end at a fairly constant 82 degrees, and in this case, by "substrate" I mean a large flat rock that rests on the glass bottom, lightly bedded in a very thin layer of sand, to prevent any tunneling down to a (possibly) overly hot glass surface. I didn't see any source of UVB in your setup, whichever you select will need to be situated pretty close to the lizards for the weak source to be effective. I'm using a duplex bulb 7.0 I got from BigApple on sale. Very bright and quiet.
Arrrgh. Gotta run, more later~~
DC
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"The time has come".... - DC, Mon May 19 18:44:35 2003