Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just put my Zoo Med dial temp gauge in albertos cave. His cave is situated on top of the heat pad witch is on the out side bottom of the enclosure. After 15 minutes I checked the temp and it was pegged at 110F No wander he hasnt liked his cave much sence I got his new heat pad. I guess I will have to plan on geting a thermostate or somthing for his enclosure. Now off to check kirmys
My Research and Collection

Hmmm the same setup in Kirmys enclosure only read 85F
My Research and Collection

yeah i had these magnet rocks that were caves but you could pull one side off so you could see inside when wanted, anyways i had it right over my heat pad and i checked it one day and it was way to hot. the geckos always would try to hide on the top level so i put a few layers of card board under it and it cooled down. they then started to like it a little better but i have greatly changed my set up since then.

Check your heating vents. I figured out that some of my tanks were a little high b/c the heating vent was blowing hot air in. lol and the temp inside the cave will always be hotter than outside.
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1.0 Hypo stripe, Het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino (Cloud)
1.0 SHCT hatched by me! (Sunny)
0.2 Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Pepper)
0.1 Normal (Freckles)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.1 Tremper Albino (Leucy)
0.1 Jungle hatched by me! (Hazy)
RIP Peaches, Ghost, Bill
Hatched: ~30
Available:
1.0 aberrant m, 0.1 pastel F, 11 month male circleback tang

Ummmm heat vents? No heat vents here. Just an all glass enclosure with screen top. Screen top stays about 2/3 covered to help hold in humidity. No worries though I think I got it fixed. I put a devider in the 55G enclosure and put Alberto on one side and Kirmy on the other. So far Kirmy is back in her cave resting and Alberto is roaming his new home. See below for a picture of the new set up in its young form. I still have several things I have to do to it but its a start.

My Research and Collection

I want to know why everyone thinks geckos can't tolerate temps that high in places as long as they can escape to another area where its not that high. They're desert animals. Temps where they live routinely get up to 140 degrees F. They hide in rock crevices during the day that are around 80 degrees F with an ambient hunidity if 75%. At dusk they start coming out to warm up.. this means heated surfaces in the 120 range.. with air temps in the high 90's still. They use natural heat sinks to get their metabolism in gear for a night of finding food. This means exposure to substrate temps far higher than you think they can tolerate. I give ALL my leos from babies on up a spot thats at least 110 degrees surface temp (Using a UTH) to provide for a belly heat surface like they'd use in the wild to help their digestion. Rocks in the desert are routinely recorded at 150 still after the sun goes down and the stars come out. They've kept all the heat from the day and release it slowly through the night. You guys are giving far too little credit to a kind of animal that are remanants of the oldest living animals on our planet. As long as you give them places that they can choose their temps from... they'll live healthily enough. 110 isn't even really hot enough to burn your skin... let alone their skin...
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Lucien

1.1 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)(Sutekh and Isis)
5.11.Leopard geckos (1.2 Blizzards (Caine, Phoenix, and Mirage), 0.2 Tangerine Albinos (Tequila Sunrise ...Tiki for short, and Casper), 1.0 Tremper Albino (Mycah), 0.3 Poss. Het. Albino (Annika, Lace, and Aris), 1.1 dbl. het blizzard x tang albino (Malice, Malfeas), 1.0 Full Stripe Chocolate Tremper Albino (Discord), 0.1 pastel (Raven) and 1.2 Normals)
0.1 Savannah Monitor (Kiros) (R.I.P. November 18, 2005)
13 rats (plus pups)
2 Dogs (Loki and Storm)
2 cats (Ashe and Hercules)