Heat advice

[ellies_mummy]

Hi, i bought a leopard gecko on saturday, shes 3 months old. The tank is currently showing 24 degrees during the day and obviously less at night. we have no heat lamps but double lights. This is what was recommended when we bought her but looking on here ppl are using heatlamps. Is the tank warm enough for her? She has a heat rock which she is happy sitting on at night. Thanks, im sooo new to this!!

 

[leogecko88]

That temp is okay for a cool side, but you need a warm side of 33 degrees. I would suggest using a red heat lamp or under tank heater for the warm side.

 

[jclee]

I'd also keep a close eye on that hot-rock's temps; they've been known to malfunction and/or get too hot, and burn animals from time to time. I haven't used one in ages, so maybe they're not as risky as they were back-when, but it might be safer to make it part of your routine maintenance to monitor its functioning and ensure it all seems to be working well. If your ambient temps get hot enough on a basking side, between the UTH and the heat bulbs, you might not even need it.

 

[Northstar Herp]

How are you measuring the temps? Is it a stuck on color thermometer? If so, they don't give the best readings, since they read only where they're stuck. If it's on the glass, then you're getting the glass temp. It's more important for leos to have good belly heat than air temp.

I have no experience with hot rocks, but have heard many people say not to use them, for the reasons jclee said.

Here's a link from this forum that you can use to learn a lot: http://www.geckoforums.net/articles.php?c=110

Welcome to the forum!

 

[JordanAng420]

You need to take the heat rock out immediately and find another heat source, because she WILL eventually burn herself. Reptiles go into a transe-like state when they're thermoregulating and a lot of the time they just don't know any better than to move. I recommend you use an UTH, preferabbly controlled by a thermostat...but if you can't do that, you can pack some paper towels underneath whatever substrate you're using to make it thicker.

If you chose to use overhead lights, that's fine, just be sure the temps are adequate enough on both the floor and in the air. Leopard geckos don't need uvb lights, you can just use plain old lightbulbs, and there are night lights- blue or red bulbs that you can switch to at night.

Please just take that heat rock out. I've treated TOO many reptiles with burns from heat rocks, and I can't stress this enough.

 

[Mel&Keith]

Just to echo how important this it, please remove the heat rock! Not only do they get to hot for Leopard geckos, they commonly overheat. I used to work for a pet supply distributor and we got returns on defective heat rocks all the time. They are very dangerous.

 

[roger]

leo gecko just to correct u .you said 33 deg i'm assuming that should be celsius no??