Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Sorry to be asking so many questions lately, but I am a new turtle owner and am very concerned with the health of my new RES. However, the basking area for my turtle is not nearly warm enough. I have observed him clinging to the rock that breaks the filter's waterfall in order to bask. I can only reason he is doing that because the water running on the rock is warm yet his head and shell can stay out of water.

In any case what type of bulb would be best to get a good temperature for basking in a 10 gallon tank? There are many different watts and I'm not sure which to get. Also, I know there are ceramic heat lamps and then basking spot lamps. Since I live in a cold area, would it be best to get the ceramic one to keep on all of the time. Or would a basking spotlight be sufficient for just the day?

What is you temperature under the light you are using now?

It's about 74F on the basking spot.

I have my new hatchling turtle in a 10 gallon for now. I use
a 30 watt regular household bulb that rests on the screen
directly above the basking area. I also have a Reptisun
5.0 for UVB resting on the screen across the aquarium. The
key is to try different wattages of household bulbs and
put a thermometer on the basking area. Read it in about
20 minutes and adjust your bulb wattage as needed. You want
the basking area between 85 and 90 degrees. Keep in mild
that this will also heat the water to a certain extent.

My baby is in my iguana room where a room heater keeps the
ambient temp no lower that 75 degrees. All lighting will
depend on the temp of the room. ie: cooler room, higher
wattage, warmer room, lower wattage. I hope I am making
sense. I don't have to use any additional heat at night
so he can sleep in darkness which is important.

Your questions are very good ones. I asked these questions
several years ago when I started keeping reptiles. Experience
is the key so feel free to ask anything...your turtle depends on
you to.

Hope this helps.
Linda

You need to get that temperature to around 85-90 degrees. If the basking spot is not much warmer than the water temperature they will tend to not bother basking.

I only use Mercury vapor bulbs (using such a large bulb on a small tank though can be problematic). A small heat lamp combined with a UVB flourescent lamp should do the trick for you. As long as you water temps stay above 70 degrees or above at night you can turn off the heat lamp at night. The Flourescent (of course) can be shut of at night either way.

A heater in you tank set at 70 degrees will insure the temperature of the water and allow to shut off all other heat sources at night.

So bulbs for heating are a matter of choice and I don't need a ceramic blub to heat the basking area. Do I keep trying light bulbs with different wattages? And what is a mecury vapor bulb?

What does everybody else use as a heating source for their basking areas?

you might have to do some experimenting to see what gets your turtle to bask and what doesn't. My RES has a somewhat normal routine and when I change something I watch his behavior for changes. I use a ZooMed 75w basking spot lamp over a piece of driftwood that he can get up on, and when I first got it and just had it suspended over the top of the tank(even with the top edge) he would just hang on the edge of the wood and not get on fully. I put my hand on the wood and it was very hot. So I've raised the light up about 2 inches and now he's basking fully out of the water. He's about 5 inches wide so I have a 40 gal. tank. On the other side of the tank where he usually hangs out I use a ESU Reptile 20 watt super uv coil lamp for uva and uvb. And so far both are working well, both ends of the turtle are working great if you know what I mean! So keep trying different things and see what reaction you get. Good luck!