Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys, I have been keeping geckos for a while now, and I was just setting up a new tank for some new arrivals I am expecting to aquire soon. I was opening the new UTH i bought, and decided that I would read over the directions for the first time ever LOL. I mean, its pretty self explanatory, I never bothered before, but who does LOL. Anyway, I, Like many other keepers, use paper towel substrate in my tanks. What concerns me though, is that the directions specifically state "Do not use with paper towels". I was wondering if anyone has ever had any bad experiences with their UTH in that regard? Also, I noticed that the makers of the UTH reccomend putting it on the side of the tank VS the bottom. I Personally think this would defeat the purpose, would it not. After all I dont see it being possible to possibly raise the ambient air temperature of the tank to the desired degrees at all in that position. I was wonder what the other keepers thoughts were on these points? Thanks for your time! -
-Dustin
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1.0 Bearded Dragons
1.1 Fat tailed geckos

We were initially concerned about that and put some substrate below the paper towels, but it was just a mess. To be honest, we just leave a few layers of papertowels (you don't want the geckos to be in direct contact with the heated glass for sure) we monitored the temperature carefully and found that the temps at the surface were just fine. I think they have to say all that stuff in order not to get sued.

I would err on the side of being really careful and check and double check the temperature when just using paper towels at first, as your setup and UTH may be different than ours. But really, we've been fine and our leo is happy with the set up and her favorite belly heat.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock