Cannot keep tank warm enough! Advice Appreciated

[Snuffles379]

Hello all! I feel like I've been bombarding the forum lately but with the temperature dropping suddenly where I live I feel like I've had a couple of problems with my Leo pop up at once.

I've always used a UTH and a normal light bulb during the day, however, my leopard gecko's tank has always been on the cool side as my apartment is on the basement floor so the room temperature is always low. Though this has never been a problem until the beginning of this year when my 12 year old male gecko's on feet and tail started getting red. The first occurrence of this caused open sores on the bottom of his feet and while the vet could not confirm what it was caused by (he suggested some kind of internal problem) I was so worried it might have been from the heating malfunctioning that I replaced everything. Since this time I've been really cautious about the heating for fear of him getting sores again, he does routinely still get swollen and red but it changes day by day and is never an open wound and I monitor the heat with a digital thermometer which makes me think it has nothing to do with the heat.
The problem now is that he's been having increasing trouble eating and I'm wondering if getting his tank warmer would help with digestion and get him moving more. After the sore incident I went down a size in UTH and though it's an appropriate size for my 20 gallon long the thermometer (which sits on the floor inside of his warm hide that he stays in 24/7) only reads around 74 degrees. I also have a UV bulb on during the day which I had hoped would add some heat but has not. It's frustrating because it appears for most people the UTH and light are plenty enough to maintain the correct temperature so I feel like I'm doing something major wrong but I have no idea what it could be.

So now I'm just wondering what I can do to raise the temperature in his tank and whatever it is I want to be sure that there's no chance it will burn him. I've heard of red heat lamps as well as ceramic heat emitters, both seem like a good option since they will not be heating up the floor of his tank as much but just air temp, can anyone give me any feed back on this?
Any suggestions or advice would be really helpful, It appears the red heat lamp would be a cheaper option but would there be any risk of it injuring him?

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[SORROW89]

You need a bigger heat mat and attach it to a thermostat and a heatbulb or CHE. 74 warm side? The heat mat must not be working or the thermometer.

 

[acpart]

To get a more accurate temperature reading (if you're not already doing this): get a temp gun (about $25) or a digital thermometer with probe (about $9 by ZooMed I think)

To make sure your UTH is working: check the number of watts it's supposed to put out, get a watt-meter and see if it's really doing that

To get better output from your UTH (assuming it's working): tape aluminum foil over the UTH (so the UTH is sandwiched between the bottom of the cage and the foil) to direct the heat upwards.

Aliza

 

[Snuffles379]

Thanks for the response! I do use a digital thermometer and the UTH is brand new and it's the proper size for the cage. I believe the UTH is working properly since it's new and it's quite warm to the touch, however, checking the watt output is a great idea. I'll definitely do that.

Though I'm a bit too worried to mess around with the UTH itself in fear of making the floor too hot and hurting him, are heat lamps/ceramic heat emitters uncommonly used with leopard geckos? Or are they still an option?

 

[jemjdragon]

Geckos need belly heat not back heat, which is what red heat lamps and ceramic heat emitters do. They are actually more likely to cause burns that the UH since they gecko is looking for belly heat and not thinking about air temperatures or that they are being cooked from above.

If you are really worried, get a thermostat. You plug in your UH to it and put the thermostats probe over the floor of the cage where the heat mat is. You set the thermostat to the temperature you want and it will turn off the heating mat if it gets too hot and turn it back on if it gets too cold. You should also still be monitoring temperatures with an IR thermometer though. You can also get a lamp dimmer to turn the wattage (and as a result turn down how much heat is produced) but they are less accurate and you will need to manually keep checking the temperature to set the dimmer correctly.

Also 74* for the warm side is way to low. I would check if your heat mat is producing enough heat or if your thermometer is working correctly.

 

[SORROW89]

They need both the UTH and the heat lamp if you want them to be very healthy and live long.

 

[SORROW89]

dup

 

[Embrace Calamity]

Your temps are massively off, but one thing little thing that could help (assuming you have a screen top) is if you cover part of the screen with something (magazine or whatever), which can really help maintain the right temps. Usually during the day I keep one on there, as my room gets pretty cold as well, and the heat likes to escape into the room.

What's the wattage of the light you're using? And what kind of substrate do you have?

~Maggot

 

[lisa127]

I'm wondering what you are measuring temps with? I always find it amazing when people say their cages are too cold with a combination of a UTH and a heat lamp. Which always makes me wonder how they are measuring temps. For years I've kept reptiles and I will never, ever be without a temperature gun in my house. They are invaluable.

The room my reptiles are in is very warm. Mostly because I have a dedicated reptile room that is very tiny. It is a room that is only 8 ft. by 10 ft., so when I keep the door closed it holds the heat in from heat lamps and the ambient temp even in the middle of winter is at least 75 in there. I provide belly heat to my leo by using slate tiles with a night bulb overhead to heat them up (no UTH). And with the warm room they are in it takes only a 25 watt bulb to heat the tiles to the correct temperature. That is the only heat used on my leo cage. So assuming most people's rooms are cooler than mine in winter, I still don't see how adding a UTH to that wouldn't be enough.

To expand on what the poster above me said about covering part of the top....an easy way to do that is to cover the screen top with foil, and just cutting out "holes" for the heat lamp. That does a good job of raising the temps if needed.

Anyway, if you don't have a temp gun I would seriously consider getting one.

 

[Snuffles379]

Thanks so much for all of your responses. After reading everyone's suggestions I realized that I really couldn't help him without getting a proper reading of the UTH/tank so I ran out and bought a Ryobi temperature gun. It seemed really unlikely to me that his heat mat was not working properly as it's brand new and obviously gives off heat and also that his eating problems are being caused by the cooler temperature since he has always been kept in the same room in the same area and has never had problems until recently so I had been suspecting my digital thermometers as well but I had replaced them twice and got the same readings.
However, after using the temperature gun on the mat it's obvious that both digital thermometers I own are considerably off and that it is much warmer. Though I'm also slightly concerned because around the edges of that mat it reads around 85-90 (which is where he always lays, around the edge of his hide) but there is a spot in the center that reads at 100-102. The gun says it has a 5 degree accuracy rating but should I be concerned with that temperature in the middle? Could that cause him harm or is that common for UTH?
I'm frustrated that both of my digital thermometers were so drastically off, and while I'm really glad his tank is around the correct temp I'm also a bit upset that that wasn't the cause for his eating problems as that was something that is easily fixable.

Let me know what you guys think about the higher temp with the heat mat, I do have a Big Apple brand thermostat that I purchased after his last injury, however, the thermostat's readings never got high enough for it to ever turn the mat off (another reason I thought his tank was too cool). Do you think I should keep the mat plugged into that just in case? Will that help with that hotter spot or is that common and something I should just leave alone?

Also someone asked what my substrate and bulb wattage was. I use reptile carpet on the warm side and tile on the cool, the bulb I use is a UV reptile bulb 2.0 13W.

Thanks again for all of your help, I had no idea digital thermometers could be so far off because they're something I've always been recommended to use, I wish someone had told me to get a temperature gun years ago.