Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm no expert with Ionides, but I do understand construction, water vapor behavior in structures, air flow in structures, and a variety of other stuff.

If you have trouble keeping ambient temperature down while you are making an adequate (140F measured on the substrate with a Radio Shack non-contact thermometer) basking spot, this may help.

We are comfortable in the low 70's, which is about the right low-temp value for your monitor's habitat. That's all general knowledge I assume. To get cool air down into the habitat where your monitor needs it, is to duct it. If you have, say, a six foot wide X 30" breadth tank with small monitors in it, add a one-piece vertical 5" sheet metal duct at the cool area. Hold the duct about five inches off the floor, and run it up through the top of the habitat. Cool air sinks, and will flow down through the duct, giving a cool-air flow down through the bottom. Cover the duct top with 1/4" mesh if you think your lizard may climb the inside of the duct. For this to work, you may need to make a small additional hole in the cage somewhere, say the ceiling, so the air displaced by the sinking cool air can escape.

If you have a wooden sided habitat, just make a rectangular hole about five inches up on the wall and screen it.

Doing this stuff will increase the electricity usage of the setup, but it might be worth it to the monitors.

Where I live, this won't work in the summer unless I cool the house all day long. There are other ways to provide cool air during hot weather spells that screw-up our habitats' temperatures.

The other day I saw a poorly designed palatial idoor habitat for lizards. It had enough lights and CHE's, but the builder made two large vents a few inches off the bottom, on both sides of the cage. The person was keeping some sort of water monitor in it, I can't differentiate the species, but it was adult. That habitat is flooded with cool air clear ascross the whole bottom air zone. When I mentioned that, the owner got hot with me about un-asked for advice, but how could I resist?. The lizard looked pretty good though. In my experience lizards can look good up to the day before they die.

Roger

Just use lower wattage bulbs and place them closer to the reptile. CHE and 150 watt 'reptile' bulbs waste power. A couple of 45 watt halogen bulbs placed close enough to the basking area will do the trick much better, and will help keep the cool side from getting too warm (in most cases).

Interesting concept though.

....approach, although it decreases the size of the basking zone.

Roger

They should have more heating options then just one basking!
Monitors use other ways to keep warm.

No offense, but that design is so 1970's and is a complete backwards step to monitor husbandry.

I offered the solution to this problem and have been practicing it for 16 years now. Where have you been?

This is kinda what I said some many years ago, "White man(and I mean white, not a color, but by action) makes big fire, sits far away. Native american, makes little fire, sits close". There is a whole lot of information in this saying. How wasteful white(inexperienced keepers) keepers are. How overboard they go, how needless the things they do are, and how these things they do effect others/monitors and the enviornment.

Large wattage lites placed far away are a waste of energy, are completely not needed and create more problems then they fix. Are expensive(money that could be used for useful purposes)So those high wattage bulbs make tons of dumb problems that you need to fix, things that should not be a problem in the first place.

But then again, go ahead with that goofy thing, I am a firm believer its all about what you understand. You have a better understanding of mechanics so you create mechanical problems you can attempt to solve. You know, changing the problem from something you don't understand, to something you do understand, Instead of actually fixing the actual/real problem, the understanding of a living animal. Cheers

Someone told me you can’t heat a humid cage because water can’t be compressed, therefore this person keeps his animals in open (screened) cages.

I keep mine in closed cages, my substrate is more saturated at night, when my ambient temps go up after the basking lights are on, the air becomes saturated with moisture.

All this allows surface dirt a dry period witch keeps fungus from growing, this dry period allows skin shed to shrink and peel off, witch helps my lizards.
Of course if needed I can always ventilate more or less depending on my lizards needs.
But generally my cages are tools that don’t require a constant attention, I like it simple.

monitors usualy die a slow death.