Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

I have a 10 year old female leopard gecko and I recently moved into a new house and the temperature in my room (where my gecko is) is very inconsistent. The easiest thing to do would move her out but my other roommates don't want her in the main part of the house (sad I know). So far I have been using a portable radiator heater and putting it next to the warm side of her cage and that works ok but I would really like something more consistent that was attached to the cage. I have a UTH on the warm side of her cage (a different wall than the heater) but it doesn't warm that part up enough. I have a thermometer on the warm side to make sure it doesn't get too hot. With winter I'm having a hard time keeping it warm enough. What is a good way to keep it from fluctuating a lot?
Thanks a lot!
Julianne
p.s.
I used to use a light over the tank but I have cats that kept knocking it over and after 3 broke on the ground I decided that wasn't safe. (if there was a way to make them more sturdy or attached to the cage that would still work I suppose).

Proportional thermostats can be really handy in your situation - they can regulate heat tape, heat cables, etc. They adjust to the ambient temperature or to the temperature on the surface of the heating material (depending on where you place the sensor). The only potential downside is that many people feel they're too expensive (generally in the $130-150 range). The expensive route's the easy route, but many folks can't get past the expensive part.

I totally agree with the themostats, and yes they are expensive unless you know a lot about electronics and make your own.

My one comment was that it sounded like you had the UTH on the side of the enclosure, not the bottom, or am I reading that wrong? (That you just have the heater on the other side.) The UTH on the bottom will better serve the gecko and allow more time for the warm air to stay in the enclosure before leaving. (I know I'm making this sound really simple, but it's late and I don't feel like playing engineer right now.

Two other hints, a piece of tin foil over the warm end, while it will close off some air circulation, it will create convection currents and will reflect radiation back downward creating more heat concentration. Cheap and easy, just don't cover the whole length only the warm half, I'm required by law to say that no suffocation allowed. (Shoot, I did just play engineer, I even said radiation.)

Another option is upgrading your portable heater, I had one you could set a room temp for, close your door and that might do some good. Pretty cheap at a hardware store.

----- (Sleepygecko has a master's degree in heat transfer and supersonic air flow, she is currently crazy and thinking of a career change, but can't stop being an engineer when talking about heat and geckos. She needs help.)
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock

I found something on the Petsmart website that seemed like what you talked about but it was a lot cheaper. Are these the same thing?
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752611&cp=2767037.2862253&fbn=Taxonomy|Heating & Lighting&fbc=1&clickid=topnav_dropdown5_link5&parentPage=family&keepsr=1
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752604&cp=2767037.2862253&pg=4&fbn=Taxonomy|Heating & Lighting&fbc=1&clickid=topnav_dropdown5_link5&parentPage=family&keepsr=1

Worth a shot if you can afford to try something, but:

Don't know much about these products, but on the pages you sent us, the first link the customer review says she can't get it to maintain a temp lower than 90F, which might have to do with her set up, but also might have to do with the lower limit of how much the product can "turn down" the heat sources.

The second product was for a 40 gallon tank, unless I got the wrong link.

If I am not mistaken (someone correct me) there is a lot of fumbling to be had to get this set up, these aren't thermocouple based systems or anything. You can't just set it to 87F, you set it to level yellow on a dimmer type switch and then give it an hour and check the temps, move the switch depending on how close you got to the right temperature, repeat. Just so you know this.

I admit I do not use any of these types of products, I just have a dimmer switch for emergencies requiring supplemental heat for my crested, our UTH keeps our leo at the right temp even when the heat fluctuates here. I don't, in general, trust feedback heat regulators, but that might come from too much working with them.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock

Neither of those items is what you're looking for.

The ZooMed thermostat is too big, bulky, and too new to the market to make much of at this time. Plus, how do you fit something that size into a leopard gecko hide?

The rheostat is exactly what you do not want if your room is subject to temperature fluctuation. Rheostats operate similarly to proportional thermostats in that they only allow a percentage of electricity through to the heating element in order to achieve a specific temperature below the maximum temp the heating element would reach on its own.

However, rheostats do not self-adujst, at all. It's a guessing game at first, moving it up, then down, then up a little less, till you reach the temp you want. Two minutes later, local temp in the room changes, and the rheostat is feeding too much or too little electricity to the heating element. Make sense? Many people who keep room temps set specifically (and constantly) for large herp collections use rheostats since they're cheap (you can make one for 5-6 bucks), but they work in this scenario because the room is doing the PROPORTIONAL part of the work for the rheostats.

If the room a herp is in has a fluctuating temperature, a proportional thermostat is best. They're no more expensive than a standard full bill from the vet for a cat or dog, and since leopard geckos cost more than any non-purebred cat or dog, it makes sense (to me at least) to use a proportional thermostat (albeit with a backup thermostat, too, which runs another ~$25-75). Then again, leopard geckos are tough enough to easily take large temp fluctuations, and a heating element that averages 90-100F on its own should work in most cases, so long as the hide is positioned over it in an appropriate way (recall, when using a proper hide, you lose a good bit of the heat in between the surface of the heating element and the surface of the hide substrate).

as long as the tank floor stays warm and the air temp does not drop below 50 or so you are fine. Where leos are from nights get very cold sometimes and winters harsh. As long as they have a belly heat to soak up they are fine. Air temp actually means very little to reptiles per say. Radiant or absorbed heat is what counts. As long as they have not just eaten even a couple degrees above freezing usually won't even kill them in short burst.
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"Why is it we treat the earth as if we have a spare in the trunk"