I too have kept reptiles from the dawn of time. or so it seems, hahahahahahahaha.



So why is this only happening now. And It is a recent event.



Its my fault. It is, I was the one who introduce high basking temps. Well It did not start with this, but the extreme heat, brought it our attention.



In the old days(pre-me) the normal basking temps or monitors was 90F or less, now its around 135F or higher. As you can imagine the amount of super heated air raising out of the cage has greatly increased.



The problem always exsisted. Only it was not critical then, it became chronic, with the added heat. Back then, many reptiles commonly developed gout, both viseral and skeleltal. Gout occurs with chronic longterm dehydration.



With the normal temperatures of todays basking areas, you do not recieve gout, you recieve raisens(sultanas) With the amount of moisture loss in these cages, dehydration becomes critical quickly, having an immediate effect.



So yes, it was my fault. As Dr. Phil would say, I own this one. I am responsible. But I did offer the cure. Use less venting and lower wattage.



As an old saying goings, only a fool does the same thing, over and over expecting different results. It also takes a fool to do something very different expecting the same results. If you have a huge change like a large increase in max surface temps, you must expect something new to occur, both good and bad. Cheers

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