Posted by:
Rextiles
at Tue Jun 4 14:00:40 2013 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Rextiles ]
I like to incubate my eggs around 78-80 degrees using the aquarium incubator method which is basically an aquarium heated with an underwater heater. Disregard the sticker on that says 82 degrees, it's not accurate.
The one shown is just a 5 gallon which can hold 4-8 clutches of eggs, depending of course on the clutch size and the containers used to keep the eggs in. I also use vermiculite mixed with a 1:1 ratio of water per weight. You could easily use less water or maybe no water at all because the heated water in the tank creates plenty of humidity, but I've not found any reason to deviate from what I've been doing. Also, aquarium heaters are reliable, cheap and easy to find/replace unlike thermostats used for flexwatt which are expensive and not readily found in stores.
Our downstairs is too cold to keep the eggs in ambient temps because we keep the temps at 72 so I used to keep my eggs in a walk-in closet upstairs and that would work fine until we would hit extremely hot days which then caused my closet to overheat the eggs causing me to lose clutches and/or cause severe kinking in hatchlings. I also had problems with my vermiculite drying out after 4-5 weeks which would then start desiccating the eggs. I would have to add more water to the vermiculite or else risk the health of the eggs. So after losing several clutches due to overheating during the summer months, I bought a used beverage cooler in the hope of making my own incubator that many others have converted but after hearing several nightmare stories of household fires and such (due to faulty wiring and bad thermostats), I decided against using one (for now).
The aquarium method has worked extremely well for me and I can now incubate my eggs downstairs so they won't overheat upstairs and I never have my eggs dry out because of the good humidity range.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles
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RE: Incubation Temp's you've had success wit - Rextiles, Tue Jun 4 14:00:40 2013
