>>Yoshi is doing awesome in his new cage of 48x24x24 and we are able to pick him up and play with him now. Thanks for all the help!
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>>I am looking forward to finding a somalian asap I like those and want one bad now. I have found these guys make great pets.
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>>I have put a 150 watt basking bulb in now and looking into awesome lighting for yoshi day and night cause my room gets a little cool at night (ohio go figure). I think a 36" 5.0 and a basking bulb on each side would do it and a night bulb on each side at night would help. I am open for suggestions here plus is there anyway of doing this so that I don't have to change bulbs from day to night without getting more floodlight type recepticles?
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>>Anyways thanks for all your help we do appreciate it!!!!!!
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>>Romeo
48x24x24 is a nice size and not too difficult to heat. It probably is not wide enough to support two hot zones and a cool zone but as long as one area stays around 85 and you have a nice gradient up from there to an area of around 100 that would be good. The cool area of 85 does not need to be very large nor should it take up more than 1/3 of the total floor space. You will probably find your uro does not spend a ton of time in the cool zone but it is important.
Unless you get more dome lamps (don't forget you can use cheap($7) aluminium dome lamps from the hardware store as long as they have ceramic sockets and are rated with a high enough wattage) you are stuck with changing bulbs every night if you need heat. You should only need to heat one area at night if it gets below 65 degrees. Figure out where he(she) is sleeping at night and take some temp readings there. This is where a cheap indoor/outdoor remote probe thermometer with min/max readings come in real handy. I have one with the proble placed in the hide where my uro sleeps at night and in the morning I can see what the coolest temp was over night then reset it for the next day.
Basically you are at the tweaking stage, just keep adjusting your lighting and heating until you hit the numbers you want. For me the numbers I watch daily are my daytime gradient (85-100) my daytime basking temp (120-130) and my nightime temp in the hide (65-70). The tools I use to monitor those temps are... indoor/outdoor thermometers($10 each) and an infrared tempgun($25). Add a couple of lamp timers and you have a semi-automated system.
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Mike Wilson
mwilson@fuu.net
