Initial setup questions/review

Kerberos

New Member
Messages
2
Location
Moon
Planning on getting my first leopard gecko soon (Younger one), I have most of the tank setup and wanted some opinions on what I have so far. It has been running for a few days.

Mainly asking this because of the massive amount of conflicting information I have read over the past two weeks. I would rather ask people who are currently keeping healthy critters instead of going off of incorrect or outdated information.

I've got a 10 gallon tank with a day and night (IR) bulb, temperatures peak a bit too high mid-day with both lamps on (100-110f). With just the day lamp on it stays around 94f hot side, 80f cool side using thermometers measuring air temperature. Humidity in the cool side is about 55, from what I read i need to lower it to between 20 and 40.

Three hides: warm, cool and moist (Moist is in the cool side of the tank with moss). Substrate is 1/4" thick slate tile (Good luck chomping on that).

I do not have a UTH yet, unsure if I should get a 4x5 or 8x6. Would it be ideal to have the UTH cover the underside of the warm hide?

Shallow water bowl and food bowl, I've read that you can put the calcium powder in the food bowl and they will self-regulate their intake. Was planning on dusting the food with it as well. I intend to feed him/her mainly crickets and mealworms, though I have read that the younger ones can have trouble digesting the mealworm exoskeleton. Something I should be concerned about?

I'm unsure of what to get for a temperature controller, it seems like most of them are only single zone with one temperature probe. The multi-zone ones I have seen with built in timers are hilariously overprice for what they are ($200-300).

What I want to do is have one with at least two probes, one on the bottom of the tank for the UTH and one for the lamp mounted on the side of the tank for air temperature. What do you guys use? From all I've read about UTH, it seems pretty necessary to me to have a probe on top of the UTH, inside the tank.

I'm also considering building a multi channel PID controller for the UTH, hot side and cool side with a built in lighting timer.

Well, that turned into a wall of text pretty quickly. Looking forward to suggestions, I want to get this thing perfect before I go buy my new reptilian overlord.
 
Last edited:

discoverlight

New Member
Messages
165
Location
Ontario
10gal is a little small, although it's recommended as a good setup starter, it's an absolute bare minimum. If you could upgrade them sometime in the future im sure your gecko would highly appreciate the extra space. 15-20 gallon is actually the recommended living space for an adult gecko, for a baby 10 will do fine.

Well air temperature doesn't need to be so high, it's just ground temperature you have to worry about. Ambient temperature can be 70-75F and you wont have any issues, it's belly heat they need, the ground needs to be 85-90F for them to digest their food. If the ambient temperature is too hot on the cold side, they wont be able to maintain their own temperature and overheat easily.

Humidity definitely doesn't need to be up in the enclosure, just spraying a moist hide down once a day will do, they will go in and out at their leisure. UTH, go with the bigger one if you plan on upgrading to a bigger sized enclosure in the future, it'll be easier if you cover a bit more ground. I haven't heard of anybody having trouble with babies and mealworms, if they are getting proper belly heat to digest their food (85-90) they shouldnt have trouble eating mealworms, but if you wanna go the safe route, you can go crickets.

Probes just make sure that the heat pad is maintaining the temperature. They can malfunction and not work, or even overheat, and checking on the temperature is a good way to know if you need to get a new one, or put something over it to maintain the ideal 85-90F you need.

I have only used a probe my whole life to check ground temperatures, as im 100% sure my thermostat tells me my ambient house temperature, which is a set 75 right now. You don't need to go full out, but if you wish, it'll help you keep track of everything easier
 

crazylizardlady

New Member
Messages
106
Location
Jacksonville NC
Planning on getting my first leopard gecko soon (Younger one), I have most of the tank setup and wanted some opinions on what I have so far. It has been running for a few days.

Mainly asking this because of the massive amount of conflicting information I have read over the past two weeks. I would rather ask people who are currently keeping healthy critters instead of going off of incorrect or outdated information.

I've got a 10 gallon tank with a day and night (IR) bulb, temperatures peak a bit too high mid-day with both lamps on (100-110f). With just the day lamp on it stays around 94f hot side, 80f cool side using thermometers measuring air temperature. Humidity in the cool side is about 55, from what I read i need to lower it to between 20 and 40.

Three hides: warm, cool and moist (Moist is in the cool side of the tank with moss). Substrate is 1/4" thick slate tile (Good luck chomping on that).

I do not have a UTH yet, unsure if I should get a 4x5 or 8x6. Would it be ideal to have the UTH cover the underside of the warm hide?

Shallow water bowl and food bowl, I've read that you can put the calcium powder in the food bowl and they will self-regulate their intake. Was planning on dusting the food with it as well. I intend to feed him/her mainly crickets and mealworms, though I have read that the younger ones can have trouble digesting the mealworm exoskeleton. Something I should be concerned about?

I'm unsure of what to get for a temperature controller, it seems like most of them are only single zone with one temperature probe. The multi-zone ones I have seen with built in timers are hilariously overprice for what they are ($200-300).

What I want to do is have one with at least two probes, one on the bottom of the tank for the UTH and one for the lamp mounted on the side of the tank for air temperature. What do you guys use? From all I've read about UTH, it seems pretty necessary to me to have a probe on top of the UTH, inside the tank.

I'm also considering building a multi channel PID controller for the UTH, hot side and cool side with a built in lighting timer.

Well, that turned into a wall of text pretty quickly. Looking forward to suggestions, I want to get this thing perfect before I go buy my new reptilian overlord.

Get the undertank heater designed for the 10-20 gallon tank it should say right on the package which size it is. I agree with everything discoverlight said. I would add as far as the temp control I have a thermostat designed for planting trays in greenhouses I got it on amazon for around $18 and it works quite well it has a probe on the end that sits on top of the tile under the warm hide. Also ditch the lamps all together, leos dont need them, they can irritate their eyes and stress them out.

As far as feeding you want to dust your insects dont feed your leos in a bowl with calcium in it, they can end up getting too much at once. You want to dust with calcium with D3 and a multivitamin. The way I do it is babies that get fed daily get D3 dusting 5 days a week and then multivitamin the other two days older leos get multivitamins every 3rd feeding and D3 all others, this is not the only way just how I do it. If you leave a calcium dish in the tank which some people do some dont, only use pure calcium in it the kind without D3 so they dont overdose.

I feed mainly dubia roaches and mealworms with the occasional crickets and wax worms very occasionally. Make sure you gutload any insects you use. Mealworms I keep on oatmeal with some pieces of carrot or other veggies I have on hand. Roaches and crickets I usually stick with oranges or some other fruit.

What sort of substrate do you plan to use? I have personally used paper towels, eco earth and now have all my guys on tile with a thin layer of eco earth underneath to prevent any hot pockets. I highly recommend the tiles its so much easier and more sanitary.

Welcome to the wonderful world of leos, be warned they are highly addictive haha. Enjoy your new little guy and kudos for researching and figuring out the right way to do things before jumping in.
 

Kerberos

New Member
Messages
2
Location
Moon
Thank you two very much for the advice!

I'll go with the larger UTH then. I was planning on building a larger tank (Somewhere around 20 inch depth, 35 inch width and 15 inch height, which is about 46 gallons) while the little one is growing in the smaller tank.

I'll ditch the bright day time lamp, would the night time lamp also irritate their eyes? I head heard that it was outside their visible spectrum.

Out of curiosity I put together a list of components I'd need to build my own 4 channel temperature/lighting controller with 4 optocoupled SSRs, 3 thermistors, digital hygrometer and a few thermal fuses as emergency failsafes. Should come to about $103 and 960 watts per channel, excluding the circuit board. Think I might go ahead and start on that, way more power and control than needed but I've been looking for a new electronics project. Think anybody would be interested if I documented the build and code in the DIY forum?

Funny coincidence that your username is crazy lizard lady, that's the nickname of the person who got me interested in reptiles (She has 4 beautiful beardies :D).
 

crazylizardlady

New Member
Messages
106
Location
Jacksonville NC
Thank you two very much for the advice!

I'll go with the larger UTH then. I was planning on building a larger tank (Somewhere around 20 inch depth, 35 inch width and 15 inch height, which is about 46 gallons) while the little one is growing in the smaller tank.

I'll ditch the bright day time lamp, would the night time lamp also irritate their eyes? I head heard that it was outside their visible spectrum.

Out of curiosity I put together a list of components I'd need to build my own 4 channel temperature/lighting controller with 4 optocoupled SSRs, 3 thermistors, digital hygrometer and a few thermal fuses as emergency failsafes. Should come to about $103 and 960 watts per channel, excluding the circuit board. Think I might go ahead and start on that, way more power and control than needed but I've been looking for a new electronics project. Think anybody would be interested if I documented the build and code in the DIY forum?

Funny coincidence that your username is crazy lizard lady, that's the nickname of the person who got me interested in reptiles (She has 4 beautiful beardies :D).

Haha my friends call me the crazy lizard lady and refer to my house as Jurrasic world even though theres nothing actually dangerous in here. I have 11 leos adopting number 12 first of next month, 2 cresties, and my roommate has a 9 foot boa, my house is a zoo. I personally dont have any lights on any of my guys. The jury is still out on whether the night time red or blue lights bother them but it pretty much accepted they dont really need them so I decided not to take the chance on it. I can see them fine when the light in the room is on.
I would def be interested in a DIY with that esp if it can control more than one heat mat at a time thermostats at $18 a pop gets expensive when you need 12 of them.
 

Megg

New Member
Messages
37
Location
Wichita, KS
You can get a hydrofarm thermostat for about $30 off Amazon. Definitely worth investing in. Those heat pads can get WAY too hot without one.

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk
 

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