Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello, after a nightmare of a time waiting for my female to lay (almost 40 days after being bred) she finally laid 32 eggs for me last night! They are bright white and the size of a normal jelly bean (not a jelly belly). I am so proud of her

anyways, i'm having a hard time keeping my incubator temp from soaring. and i think i may have "cooked" the eggs. but i'm not sure how acurate the thermometer is on the surface it is on so here is the low down....

i have a big styrofoam container with a zoomed under tank heater for a 1-5 gallon tank (the mini one). i have a piece of screen 4 inches above it where the eggs are kept. the eggs are in containers with holes in them, vermiculate, and light humidity. (just condensation on the inside of the lids). I have a Coralife digital thermemeter inside, hovering right above the containers. I also cut two sections out in the top and duct-taped glass for easy viewing without opening the lid. i tested this all out before adding the actual containers and screen shelf and the temp guage kept it just at 75 F. closer to 74.6 or something like that.

i come home from work today and discover the temp was at 85 F!! i freaked out, and cracked the lid so the heat could escape. i also purchased a ZooMed thermostat which i pluged the heat pad into and set it on the lowest option, hoping that it would decrease its heating power. Well the temperature is climbing back up, and its at 77.0 F now and i think it still might get higher. Have i already killed the eggs with that high temp? everything worked perfectly for weeks, now i add that actual eggs and the temp goes crazy! the only thing i can think of is that the screen is metal, could that be heating up too much and causing the temp to rise so much? like the metal screen is becoming a second source of heat or something? should i take that out all together and mount the heat pad on the side or bottom of the incubator instead? please help before i kill all these eggs! ahhhh

Ray

Temperature spikes are definitey not a good thing but I have had similar things happen in the past and still had the eggs hatch. After having repeated problems with different incubators (both purchased and DIY), I now incubate my Veiled Eggs in the top of my closet. The temperature flucutates between 77 and 82 F throughout the year. Incubating at higher temperatures will slow the eggs down so that they will be later hatching but they'll still hatch. Also, it is fine to take the egg container out into the light once in a while but the eggs will do best in complete darkness, so you might want to cover the glass veiwports with a towel of some sort. Good luck.

I agree w/Chaco. I just got done incubating a clutch of 42 w/100% hatch rate. I kept them in my top dresser drawer. Temps ranged from 72F to 78F w/an average of about 75F I added a bit of water at about 3 and six months. I used no additional heat sources.

Keep incubating all of your eggs unless they dissolve into a cloud of mold. I had a few that looked really yellow compared to the rest but they were fertile!

Bill

So Karma laid her eggs? How is the other female?
Glad to hear that she didn't have a really big clutch...and that they all sound fertile (normal jelly bean size)!

I hope that after all you have been through waiting for these eggs, that you haven't cooked them. I don't know what the highest temperature is that they can survive...or for how long the temperature could spike before they would be "cooked".

Have you tried leaving the lid off the styrofoam container leaving the lids on the egg containers? I know that this will mean that you will have to add water to the styrofoam container to compensate for the evaporation, but it should allow the heat to escape.

I'm trying to remember how you set the whole incubation "thing" up...was it styrofoam container with water and the heating device in it with the actual containers that the eggs contained suspended over that? When you are talking about the temperature, are you taking the reading right in beside the eggs or in the air inside the styrofoam container? (Sorry but I don't have time right now to go back and look at your post about how you did it).

Fingers crossed that your eggs will be okay.

right now i have all heat sources turned off, and i do keep a dark towel over the viewing glass. the incubator is in my dark closet. at night the digital thermometer reads 68 F, and during the day it reads 72 F, but i'm sure this will increase during the summer months. so should i just wait it out then? use no external source of heat and let the warming of the seasons naturally warm up the eggs? i figure in the next 3 months (by april) the temp will be increasing on its own. and then increasing the air temp in the closet naturally. i hope they are ok, they look the same.

Ray

I will tell you what I do...
I live in a cool climate so just putting the eggs in a closet or drawer won't work for me.

My very-first-ever eggs were hatched this way and I have continued to hatch them this way.

I have a people's heating pad (the kind that had three heat settings). I have a wooden 1"x 2"(deep) frame built to fit over it. It has screen over it. I raise the frame and adjust the heat setting on the pad until I have the temperature in the container that I incubate the eggs in at about 78F.

The containers I use to put the eggs in are the size of shoeboxes that I have punched one or two very small holes in the lid of. I fill the containers half full of slightly moist vermiculite. The reason for filling it only half full is to leave room for the hatchlings to move around when they hatch until they can be taken out of the container. I lay the eggs in slight dents that I have made in the vermiculite in rows that are 1" apart.

Doing it this way, I seldom have to add water and the temperature fluctuates a little with the temperature of the house. If the temperature of the house goes warmer, then adjustments need to be made to keep the eggs at no more than 78F.

I have a cardboard "wall" around the whole setup to keep the light off the eggs. Even though my setup is in the basement, there is light there from time to time. Don't know if its necessary or not....but I don't fix what isn't broken!

I can't tell you what your temperatures will do to the hatchlings/eggs. I have never incubated them at lower temperatures than I have mentioned...and I have not gone much over the 78F either. I believe others have though.

I certainly hope that your eggs will do well and that in a few months you will have lots of baby chameleons running around!

Hello ,I am about to embark on (what I believe is my females first fertile cluch.she is looking really good and should lay 20 or 30 days. So I to am exparimenting on the incubation site soo make shure you post so we can keep track of things and learn more Good Luck!!

I am just worried about the temperature. It ranges from 68-71, sometimes 72 at the highest. i'd feel more comftorable with it at 75 in the days and letting it dip a few at night. so far i've found that under tank heaters for reptiles make it too hot, even the 1-5 gallon mini.

i have heard of people using a little 7 watt light bulb (like the kind for a night light or kritter keeper lid) to incubate at lower temps. but i thought the light was bad for the eggs, that they prefered all darkness.

i have a little 25 watt moon glow lamp. maybe this will not over heat them? i'm just scared to keep messing with the temp unless i know i can get it to a constant routine.

Ray