Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm getting a Blackthroat in (hopefully tomorrow) soon, and I was wondering something about the temp.

I have a 150 watt Exo-Terra that, DIRECTLY under it (The center of the basking spot) hits 135f. Pro Exotics lists their ideal basking spot at 130. How big of a deal would that 5 degrees make?

Scratch that. The center is now 139. Too high?

has basking spots of up to 160 for their breeders, so i doubt it would make much of a difference.
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 tiger crested gecko (peachs)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

Heres the thing, I can successfully use hot area temps, from 115F to 180 or more? It depends on the monitor, the size, and most importantly, the rest of the options.

About very high hot areas, these are indeed useable, but they also can be used wrong. That is any temp above 100F can kill a monitor. The hotter temps require a clear ability to get cool when needed. IF not, it may prove fatal.

We can use extremely hot areas, because we give our monitors depth of substrate they can escape to. This is how they work in nature. If you have a cage that only has a couple inches of substrate, where does the montior go to get cool?

You must also consider that monitors picking temps by moving, left to right or back and forth, is not natural to them. They normally go up and down to achieve desired temps. They control their temperature using a mass, then move to hotter areas when needed.

Also, they use behavior to use the whole range of behavior. Therefore, no one can really tell you what works, your monitor will tell you what works.

My advice would be to pick a medium temps then safely play with it. FR

we recommend 130 because most new keepers will err and be lucky to get 120...

and i would like to see at least 120

if i was to say that some basking spots go to 150 or 160, then like Frank said, you have a lack of understanding of what that really means, and how to achieve it, and that invites new problems.

130 is a good number that is hot enough, and fairly easy to achieve, so that is why i use it.

same with nightime drops. if i say a minimum of 80, then i feel lucky if new keepers keep it above 75. if i say 75, then folks end up having 60 degree temps. this is because most are not familiar with a true night time low, how to control it, and how to measure it. when we put info on the site, i have to consider who is going to be reading it and using it, and it has to be accessible to most beginners

as for the bulb itself, we commonly achieve those temps with Halogen Flood bulbs, 45 watts, and i would suggest looking into those. reptile bulbs are expensive, poor quality, and throw very low heat.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles