Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently aquired a fairly large blue tailed monitor.I constructed a fairly large wooden cage (6ft long/4ft wide/3 ft high)enclosure.I wanted o make it high enough to make shelves etc.One of the shelves has a basking light over it and it maintains ok heat(around 100 degrees) but the rest of the enclosure isnt heating up very well.I had to make the large top door wire to provide some ventilation and I wanted to make the cage tall enough to allow for shelves etc I think this height is whats killing my heat maintenance.I tried placing another lamp over this door but it did little in warming the enclosure.Any help would be great.Thanks much

GET RID OF THE SCREEN!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot stress this enough!!! That is where all your heat and moisture are going. Your monitor will become dehydrated very quickly with that setup, get rid of the screen. If you are concerned about ventilation, drill a series of small holes toward the bottom of the cage.

Also your heat source is not hot enough. A good starting point is 2-45watt halogen flood lamps side by side, over a piece of ply wood for the basking area. Adjust the distance of the lights to the wood to acquire the right temps. Your basking temps should be at least 130*. That should be your ONLY heat source. Unless your cage is somewhere really cool, like below 70*. I provide my BT with temps from 145* down to room temp 78*.

It should look like this:

Notice the series of holes for ventilation toward the bottom of the cage.

Thats got to be the laziest monitor pose I'VE ever seen.