Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am thinking of letting my leos breed. Since that would require I get some sort of incubator I was looking around. First I was thinking of getting one of those inexpensive hovabators. After doing some research I was hearing those are ok but some people have problems because they require a lot of maintainance to maintain humidity and some units just getting too hot. I kept looking around and saw some people just make them out of Igloo coolers or out of Mini Refrigerators full size refirgerators. I thought to myself I have an extra Mini-Fridge and a couple extra large Igloo coolers I dont use much. Since I am not looking to spend $500 or $750 on a fancy incubator I thought since I have a extra mini fridge or igloo cooler for the same or close to amount as buying a hovabator and haveing it shiped to me I could make one out of one of those. I have seen basicaly 2 types, 1 where you use a heat source and heat the air and one where you use a large or several pans of water and heat the water then have racks above the pans for your egg boxes. I guess the type you use is more based on the requirements of your eggs. Here is where my questions come in.

On finding instructions on makeing these when I see the instructions for makeing one out of a mini fridge I get multiple opinions. First is useing heat tape or heat lamps. From what I can tell heat tape is better than useing heat lamps because of something about the light bothers the lizards when they hatch.

Here is my problem. I see one instruction that says heat rises so you want to put the majority of your flexwatt or heat rope on the bottom mabie a little going up the sides but 80-90% on the bottom. Another instructions will say get some heat rope or flexwatt and plaster it all over the inside bottom and all sides of the walls all the way to the top basicaly covering the entire thing except the roof. A third instructions says get a foot long 11" wide strip of flexwatt and put half on the top and half on the back wall. Wich one is correct?

I was thinking this would be a better choice and easier to maintain temps and humidity for the amount of money since I already have a mini fridge I could use.

It appears you are working off the assumption that there is only one right answer. All of the variations you described will work; therefore, are all correct. I prefer to use what I have available to me. When I made my incubator from a wine fridge, I used a 2' section of 11" flexwatt layed across the bottom and up the sides in a "U" shape. I am fairly certain I could have gotten away with just 1' of flexwatt but can't afford to tinker with it anymore since I may have eggs within days to put in it. I also had heat rope laying around and could have used it, but didn't. No real reason I guess.

Get a general idea from others about what has worked for them and just start playing around with what you have. There are several plans floating around the forums and Julian Garcia has a nice video on Youtube (search "reptile incubator" ). Most of what I have seen seem more than you need for leo eggs, unless you have a lot of leos. I would just use a small cooler and 4" flexwatt or heat rope. A good proportional thermostat is a must and fill as much empty space in there as you can with bottles of water to add thermal mass. As mentioned previously, this goes a long way to help stabilize temps. As long as you have a well insulated container, reliable heat source,and reliable t-stat, the rest is just a matter of playing around and finding what works for you.

Good luck,
Bart

So would it be a good or bad idea to instead of haveing the heating element heat the just the air to instead on the bottom place a thick pan of water mabie 4-5 inches thick and the size of the bottom to maintain humidity instead of trying to maintian humidity through just the substrate your useing in your egg crates/tubs/whatever?

That is something you will need to play with to determine what works best for your setup and the eggs you are cooking. I found that a 4" pan of water placed slightly elevated over the flexwatt gives me much more humidity in the egg box, which also has water on the bottom. By doing this, I found the fridge door collects condensation but the inside of the egg box does not, which is what I want.

Bart

why waste so much time and money if they are only leos you are wanting to breed. Why not just use the easy ten gallon tank set up. Works great. Just take a ten gallon tank and then take a piece of eggcrate and some small pieces of pvc of equal length. Attatch the pvc to the eggcrate (that needs to be cut to fit nicely into tank) and this will make a platform. Then cut a piece of styrofoam to fit as the lid. Put an aquarium heater (one with a temp setting and set to desired temp) and place at the bottom of the tank. Now put the eggcrate platform in. Fill with water to a little below the eggcrate. put lid on and poke small hole to slide a digital thermometer probe through. now get it set to temp. Just use a deli cup with something like 4 small holes on the side and damp vermiculite in it. Now when eggs are put in put the deli lid on loose. Works great for things like leos
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Tom
1.2.0 Leopard Gecko (dot, spot, casper)
0.0.1 California King Snake (booboo)
0.1.0 Sulcata Tortoise (tank)
0.0.2 Russian Tortoise (tito and lulu)
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