Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all,

Well I got my enclosure built and rarin' to go as of today. I decided to go with a Tile substrate with ReptiCal sand to fill in the gaps. It is very nice looking, I will post a pic soon.

Problem though. Currently in my home it is about 86 degrees. Plugging in my UTH which is a ZooMed designed for 30-40 G tanks (mine is 29) the tile directly over the heater gets hot to the touch. No clue exactly what temp it is at but I would put it around 100 - 110 easy. I am guessing this is a bad thing. Should I just leave the UTH unplugged since it is so darn hot anyway, directions do state to unplug it if the home is above 80, and when will I know to plug it in? Also what types of thermometers do you all suggest for measuring the tile surface temp? All input is welcome, my geckos should be shipping soon so anyone with an answer please let me know. I want my Leos to be as comfy as possible.

Any digital thermometer with a probe should work... get a min/max one so you can watch for spikes... and get a thermostat. It will help keep the cage at the perfect temp.
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Brian Skibinski
Milwaukee Reptiles
Brian@MilwaukeeReptiles.com

Hey you've got to have an undertank heater set up cause 85 is a little low. They prefer it to be between 88 and 90. The thing is, overheating your leo's is the fastest way to kill them. You are going to have to use your UTH though, so you have to get a dimmer. Thermostats are insanely overpriced and fairly innacurate. I use "Satco Slide Lamp Dimmers" for all of my herps. It's 20 bucks and will provide the easiest means of controlling the temperature. The dimmer is pretty small, your UTH is plugged into it and there is a nob that you adjust on the dimmer in order to turn the amount of energy going to your UTH down or up. These dimmers are amazing, I use them for UTHS, basking spot lamps, under water heaters(turtles),etc. They work amazingly well for everything, they're not just for bulbs. As far as thermometers, you are going to need at least 2, one for the hot end of the tank and one for the cool. DO NOT purchase the strip type of thermometers as they are incredibly inaccurate and fold easily. Cheap fishtank thermometers are the best as you can simply lay them down on the substrate and recieve an accurate temperature.

And where would one find a dimmer such as this? I would suppose Home depot would have them? 20 bucks seems pretty reasonable and I would prefer a dimmer over something that shut off due to temp as I feel that at least a little juice is needed. I will go look for one of these today. Thank you much for the suggestion. I dont see why these things dont come with a dimmer built in, it is kinda silly if you ask me.

yeah, it'd be nice if dimmers were included with things like UTH's and all. I don't know if you'll find one at home depot, you might. I got mine from my local reptile shop. good luck.

I had the same problem recently. The ambient temperature here is also around 86 degrees. I used to use a UTH too, but with such high room temperature, its very easy to get overheated. So I am just using a light bulb to slightly raise the temperature of a corner of my tank, to about 90 degrees. And the UTH will only be used during the winter months.

Maybe you've noticed this, but I just discovered that something slightly warm to my touch means 95 degrees, which is too hot for the geckos. Hope this helps.

np.

Welp Two thermometers and one dimmer were purchesed today. I have good confidance that I will now be able to better control my heat. thank you all for your suggestions

Hmm, it's actually not necessary to keep two thermometers just to monitor both ends of the tank. I have two thermometers--one is a temp gun which I use to read surface temps. The other is a normal digital thermometer, which I use to read air temps. Just these two alone are enough for me to monitor any spot in all of my gecko enclosures. The temp gun is pretty fun to use. It looks like a little lazer gun from Star Trek. You just point, shoot, and get an instant reading.
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5.8 leopard geckos

chickabowwow