Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys. I have all my adult beardies in custom made melamine cages that are 4 feet long, by 2 feet deep, by 16 high. the basking areas at times, are getting up to as much as 115 degrees during the day while I'm at work. My wife always gets home before I do, and she checks the temps in the cages right away. When they get that high, she's been turning it off to cool down. Keep in mind that these temps are happening with the thermostat at low temps. None of them seem to be hurting by this. I'll see them with their mouths open, while basking....but like I said, they seem ok. Heck, two of them just laid eggs over the weekend. I'm just worried that I could be hurting them in the long run. Is this ok? I would imagine, that even though cage temps are 115 degrees, the temps of the lizards are probably only around 80-90 degrees. What do you guys think? Thanks for your help.

Oh, and the pics that are linked with this, I cant seem to get them off of here. sorry.

You will probably get several different answers to this, because if you look on different breeders pages.. and different internet websites.. you'll always get different opinions. With that being said. They can general tolerate it up to those temps. But I personally prefer a basking area of between... 95-105 degrees... I try not to let it get above that, but I completely feel you on battling the temp thing. I live in GA and the summers suck here, I just today moved my AC to a higher area, in hopes that it would help cool the over all temp. a little bit more. IMO I would try going down a step on the wattage bulb just to bring it down a little bit, but like I said, you'll get tons of different opinions... Just go w/ what you feel comfortable with, and what seems to work best for you! I hope that I helped a tad bit, or atleast helped you feel better about the situation... Good Luck!! and Congrats on the eggs!!

The basking temps are fine. The important thing is you have cooler areas for the dragons to go to when they wish. If your entire cage is 100F than you definitely need to lower the basking bulb wattages, or lower the overall temperature of the room the cages are in.

Opening up more venting ontop or the upper part of the sides or front to let heat escape more effectively is also an option. You don't want to turn off the lights as that will make the dragons think its bed time...or think its coming onto winter. Best to use lower watt bulbs (you can buy them as low as 25 watts for a standard sized household bulb).
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PHLdyPayne

Ok. You both said kinda what I was thinking. I've got the zoomed basking bulbs in there. They're 50 watt bulbs. The other end of the cages, range from 85-95 degrees........depending on how hot the basking spot is getting. It was getting hotter than that, so I drilled some more holes on the sides of the cages to release more heat. Everyone seems to be fine, I just wanted to be sure and get some other opinions. I tried looking it up on the internet and through vaious books, but I couldnt find the same answer twice. Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.

You mention the thermostat on a low setting. What do you mean by that? Are you controlling the enclosure with a thermostat or are you talking about the room thermostat? What kind and what is the thermostat set temp.?

You should be measuring the ambient temps. on both the hot and cool side. Ideally the cool side air temp. should be 80 or below in the summer. The hot side ambient should be about 90. I don't think household bulbs work well for a basking bulb. The heat is dispursed over too large an area so the really only help with background ambient temperature.

A picture of your set up would help with better suggestions.