Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For about the past 2 weeks Diego's become nocturnal...wakes up around 6-7 and goes to sleep at around midnight. I'd like to change him back to a diurnal schedule. Anyone know how? I'm a college kid so I'm always up really late and the lights are always on...and of course I always handle him whenever I can! Should I stop providing stimulus to him (turn off powersun and turn on ceramic heater and night bulb, as well as stop handling him at night and providing him food-by which I mean I'll put the food in the cage before he wakes up so that he doesn't physically see me putting the food in there at night?) Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris and Diego

I have ran into this problem too since I leave a light on 24/7. They used to wake up later and later each day. I thought if I could raise the air temp for part of the day that might work. So I added a second light that was on only on for 12 hours. Since then they've straitened their schedule out and they get up after the second light comes on. It's hard to say for sure if the changing temperature is the real reason they straitened out. You could try monitoring the cool end temp and raise it for the day time period. Make sure it doesn’t get too hot! (like anything above 90 I think)

I converted my tegus from diurnal to nocturnal (opposite of what you are doing I guess) by simply reversing his basking light times. I have 1 dark light that is on all the time for heat, and I have my basking light come on at around 4:00 PM til 4:00 AM. I'm home at night usually, so this works pretty well. It only took about 2 days for my tegus to get used to it. I never used to see my red before I did it.

You could convert to diurnal by doing the opposite - have the basking light come on from 4:00 AM (or whatever time) til 4:00 PM. What Rollin said works also.
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-reptilian9