Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My 40gal breeder enclosure is currently heated by 2 UTH's. One I have under the center area of the warm-end of the tank. I also have a mini-UTH (meant for 5.5 gallons) under just the humid hide in the corner on the warm side. The hide I am using for the humid hide is a very thick ceramic material so heat wasn't getting to it from just the main UTH so I put the additional one in to fix that. The air temp in the tank rarely, if ever, reaches 75. Do you guys think that I should buy one of those red light bulb heaters to raise the air temp? Both of my leos are in their warm hides for 75% of the day.

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Leopard Geckos
1.0.0 Tremper Albino
0.1.0 Blazing Blizzard
0.1.0 Tangerine
0.2.0 Tangerine carrot-tail baldy
1.1.0 Hi-yellow

What is the surface temp gradient? 75 air temp may be ok if the surface temp is up to 90 with lows of 75. Anything below 73 is bad. I would also like to take the time to comment that a look in hide box defeats the purpose are there are quite a few in there. Also the three hide boxes on top of the bigger one in the air with no heat and a hollow underneath is simply requesting your leos to sit in there and get sick.

They never hang out up top but I understand what you mean. Maybe I will remove the hides up there and just put in some decor for asthetic purposes. The surface temp is definitely suitable as it is warm to the touch but the temp guage that you can see in the picture ranges from 70-73, never higher. Do you think I should add a heat lamp above to warm the air or do u you think it is good as-is?
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Leopard Geckos
1.0.0 Tremper Albino - Turbo
0.1.0 Blazing Blizzard - Blizzy
0.1.0 Tangerine - Daisy
0.2.0 Tangerine carrot-tail baldy - Sunshine, Amber
1.1.0 Hi-yellow - Tiger Lily, Ginger

I would get a heat lamp and heat up the ambient air temperature to about 90 degree on the hot side. From what I heard they need that.

No. First thing is get a proper measurement of temperature of the SURFACE you gecko is laying on. How do you have so many enclosures without knowing this most basic thing?

Air temp isn't necessarily what is necessary, but knowing what the UTH is putting out is. The position of your gages (as per you pick) gives no useful information what so ever. It is neither cold nor hot side temp.

Please obtain a copy of the "leopard gecko manual" or trempers book or something before you continue this project. By saying you have 3 enclosures for babies, I feel may not understand just how many eggs you are going to get your first year in breeding. That is why I asked you what are you going to do with them, you are going to have dozens of geckos.

Sorry if I seem harsh, but this kind of message and mistakes are too rampant for my taste. You are only the last in a long line. Please read a book first.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock

Easy there chief...

I've had leo's for 6 years now without ever having one die on me. I currently have 2 books, one of them being the leopard gecko manual. Sorry that my enclosure doesn't have optimal temp. settings as per your taste but I am still in the process of getting it put together properly, hence I made this thread. As for the babies, I am planning on giving them to a friend that owns a pet store as well as sell them on www.[url ban].

Thanks
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Leopard Geckos
1.0.0 Tremper Albino - Turbo
0.1.0 Blazing Blizzard - Blizzy
0.1.0 Tangerine - Daisy
0.2.0 Tangerine carrot-tail baldy - Sunshine, Amber
1.1.0 Hi-yellow - Tiger Lily, Ginger

I'm sorry that you didn't like our comments since you came to us for help. Temp is very important but you know that since you have the books. You need a 90-78 gradient which as you know means one area is 90 degrees and the coldest area 78 degrees. They never go up top because the air is cold and for the same reason ice forms on a bridge it's too cool up there for them. You need to get a thermometer and take some surface readings for different areas in the cage to map out a thermal map. I realize that it's warm to the touch but sleepygecko is right. You wanted to know about air temp we told you what you needed to do so don't feed us this stuff about how you have never had them die. You were concerned not us.

Yes and I do appreciate the help but she seemed to come off a bit rude, I was just asking for help.

Last night I did some surface temps and the hot side is about 100F so I am going to pick up a rheostat so I can lower it a bit. Under the main hot hide I made it so there is a little over an inch of substrate to try to cool the surface down a bit. On top of the cave (upstairs) the substrate is 70F so I think I am going to remove the hides and just decorate it with fake plants or whatever. The cold side (inside of the cave) is 75 so I think I'm in good shape there.

As far as rheostats go, should I go with the one that zoomed makes or should I go for one of those plug-n-play lamp dimmers?
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Leopard Geckos
1.0.0 Tremper Albino - Turbo
0.1.0 Blazing Blizzard - Blizzy
0.1.0 Tangerine - Daisy
0.2.0 Tangerine carrot-tail baldy - Sunshine, Amber
1.1.0 Hi-yellow - Tiger Lily, Ginger

As long as you can measure the temp properly either is fine. Because of the substrate either way way you will need to play with it till you get it just like you want.

I just never knew that the temp to look at meant substrate temp and not air temp. Even in the leopard gecko manual it doesn't specify exactly when using UTH (pg 11-12?). I does say that X temp is the temp it should be directly under a heat bulb when using incandescent though. Thanks for the information.
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Leopard Geckos
1.0.0 Tremper Albino - Turbo
0.1.0 Blazing Blizzard - Blizzy
0.1.0 Tangerine - Daisy
0.2.0 Tangerine carrot-tail baldy - Sunshine, Amber
1.1.0 Hi-yellow - Tiger Lily, Ginger