Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I took a trip down to the East Bay Vivarium on Friday to check out all the reptiles and to buy a new enclosure for Gollum. All I have to say is WOW! If you live in the SF bay area and get a chance definately go, it's herp heaven there with hundreds of different reptiles to look at.

Anyway I ended up getting a 60gallon (I think) 48x18x16 terrarium with two sliding screen sections on either side of the top with a solid glass top in the middle. It is very nice and is quite an upgrade from the 10 gallon he was in. He seems happy, is eating normally, and does a periodic sprint from one end to the other. My concern though is he seems to be going to sleep earlier since I have had him in there. When I got home yesterday around 6pm he was on the cool side of the tank on a rock pretty much sleeping. When he was in the 10 gallon he was going to sleep between 9 and 10pm when the lights went out. I am not quite sure why he might be causing him to go to sleep earlier, as it could be a couple of factors that have changed including new temps, light in the tank, going through a shed, new hours of light. I would love to hear what you guys might think.

My setup is the above 60 gallon tank with a 100w basking lamp and an 18" UV light over the basking area. Basking temp is 110 deg and the cool side of the tank is 70-75 deg. The lights are set to go on at 5am when I leave for work and shut off at 10pm. Gollum is 5" from snout to the tip of toes when legs are stretched back while sleeping or basking. I have no way to get a normal measurement since he is stub tailed and his tail is the exact length of his legs stretched straight back. He is eating 15-30 crickets a day and is defacating normally once a day.

Also the cool side of the tank is not as brightly lit as the warm side of the tank when room is darker after sundown due to the single basking light and 18" uv light. This maybe it, i don't know though. I would like to brighten up the other side of the tank with an incandesent light if possible because I don't really like the "cold artifficial look" of flourescents. Does anyone have any suggestions of lights to do this with without adversely affecting the temps on that side of the tank.

Thanks
Fil and Gollum

PS I would like to get Gollum a buddy as soon as he/she is old enough to sex. Would this size tank be OK for the two to be happy?

Here's a few thoughts. IMO you could stand to raise the cool side temps up like 10 degrees. By putting another incandescent bulb (low wattage would be fine) you will get both a better lighted tank, and higher temps on that side.

Biggest problem I see is the amount of time that the lights are on every day. Thats 17 hours a day. Max should be 14 (and less when they are brumating).

So what I'd do is get some more light in the tank, and reduce the hours per day of light and see if that helps his activity a little.

Oh, and in my opinion, that size tank should be OK for 2 dragons.

Thanks for your response. I made a mistake to on the enclosures dimensions also, it is actually 48x16x16. I will go ahead and get another incandescent bulb for the cool side of the enclosure for both heat and light but I am not to familiar with how low of a wattage bulb I should go. The lowest wattage I have seen at the pet store is 50w and I have a feeling this may warm that side up by more than 10 degrees, but I am not sure. Any suggestions on wattage? Also do they make lower wattage bulbs than 50w and would any bulb do that you would find at the hardware store?

Big Fil
Gollum

I wouldn't waste your money at the pet store for this bulb. Do you have any extra light bulbs around your house? Try one of those. Clear bulbs will give off more light, but I'm not sure how much heat they give off. I'm still playing around with trying to brighten up my tank without heating it up too much. In my tank (which is different dimensions then yours), a 100w GE Reveal bulb raised the temp of the cool side a little too much (got it up to 90). However, it did brighten the tank up A LOT. So I'm trying some different ones now. Anyway, I'd suggest just going to a normal store and picking up a few cheap light bulbs and trying them.

If you're just adding light to add light, if you go to the aquatics section of your petshop, they have incandescent bulbs for aquariums. Those fit in a standard socket, but are linear. I believe their lowest wattage is 20 or 25 watts. I can't think of any other lower wattage bulbs. Oh, of course, the spiral compact flourscent bulbs are around 16 watts but give off an amount of light equal to a 50 to 100 watt incandescent bulb, but practically no heat. You can get those at Home Depot or IKEA, or any hardware store. They're about $5.