Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today I moved my rhino to his new enslosure (48x48x24). My question is, in the old cage the hot spot on top of his retes stack was about 110-115 and cage temp of about 85 . This new cage is about 5x the size and its hard to keep the hotspot on retes stack over 100 and the ambient cage temp dropped to about 78. Is this ok, or do you think I should bump it up with a heat emitter added. Right now I am using 160w MVB and a 10.0 repti strip light. He seems to try to climb closer to the MVB, but he feels warm to the touch, my temp gun said his body warmth was about 101 when he was basking. I might just be over-reacting.

Thanks in advance

ambient temp is fine. bump up the basking temp tho. my cuban is in a 5'x3'x3' and i have no issues with my basking spot getting around 125. i use a 160w megaray and also a 120w floodlight

In my limited opinion, needs to be hotter. My indoor guy has a 900 sq. foot "enclosure" and his main space (also stepped) has been(at it's highest powered) 250 x 2, although now it is 160 mega + 250. In both scenarios he spent a good amount of time at the top step (20" distance) before basking at 24", which is why I am considering adding a 250, making it a 250x2 + 160 mega. I don't worry about (nor even know!) how hot it is precisely, as much as I let him tell me what he needs.

you got a lot of numbers. I can get a 130 degree basking spot with a 90 wt flood light. Mega what ever, just teasing you cuz I owe you
I would agree the basking temp should come up about 15-20 degrees
Also, be wary of the temp gum on their skin. What needs to be measured is their core temp not surface temp. For example C lewisi tend to keep their core temp, what the lizard think is optimal at 105. Yes there was a study done in GC. If your cyclura is spending the whole day under the lamp its not warm enough.

jf