How precious do I really need to be about the temperature?

[Heatherdove]

If my room warms up in the summertime and the warm side gets a little too warm won't the gecko just go over to the cool side? Also, same for winter. A little too cool on the cool side? Go hang on the warm side for a bit. Just curious. I noticed some people seem very precise while other are a bit more "meh, whatevs" about it. Someone had said that if the cool side was too cool the gecko could go into hibernation. Wouldn't it be a little less dramatic about it and just go to a warmer area of the habitat? I thought the point of having a warm and cool side was so the gecko could regulate its own temperature.

 

[Seibar]

i can't speak yet for my new gecko, but as for my turtle of 7 years - I'm pretty "meh" about precise temperatures. like you say, when you provide a variance of temperatures throughout the tank the animal will simply move accordingly.
if you want the best growth/color/health though precise measurements help to ensure this

for it to go into hibernation it would have to be (guessing) below 60degrees, which I doubt your house/apartment/shack would ever reach.

 

[RampantReptiles]

for it to go into hibernation it would have to be (guessing) below 60degrees, which I doubt your house/apartment/shack would ever reach.

lol shack

Yeah I am not a freak about temps. The gecko will go where it needs to go to heat up/cool off. Leopard geckos are really very versatile and as long as the warm side is warm enough for them to digest and they have somewhere to go to cool off a little its fine. Some people are just over protective about their pets or try way too hard to make things perfect when in reality things are not perfect. A day in the life of a leopard gecko in the wild... the weather is going to change from day to day... the temps are not the same everyday so if the temps in your house change then its not a huge deal if the temps in your habitat change. I would just be concerned if it got too hot or if it were a temperature sensitive animal like a crested gecko. Or a huge temperature variation like 10+ degrees from one day to the next might be stressful.

 

[Blacksupra94]

I am not a temp. nazi at all, I just make sure the temps don't go over 100 because from what I understand they can burn their tails. Just make sure you have hides in all different temperature ranges.

 

[acpart]

There are people who feel that geckos do best with a fairly high ambient temperature and prefer to keep the room where the gecko lives in the low 80's at all times. This is neither possible nor desireable for me since I live in New England, keep the thermostat at 60 when we're not home in the winter and don't have air conditioning. It's possible that I may get more sluggishness in the winter than someone who keeps the ambient temps high, but my geckos are healthy. My only concession to the weather is to put the crested gecko in the basement when the living room temperatures get up toward 90.

Aliza

 

[TFerguson]

I am not a temp. nazi at all, I just make sure the temps don't go over 100 because from what I understand they can burn their tails. Just make sure you have hides in all different temperature ranges.

Really?? Can you burn your finger at just over a hundred 100 degrees? Or is that a luke-warm bath?

It's really about having a livable temperature gradient. Most people make the mistake of not having the warm side hot enough.

T Ferguson

 

[Kystaubi]

When I first got my leo, my apartment at the time was around 70 degrees room temp, and he would always stay on the warm side of the tank, in the hide. My apartment now (I moved about 2 weeks after having him) is much warmer, staying at around 83-84 degrees warm temperature, and I must say that he is a lot more active. He's a young leo, only around 2 months old, and although he's pretty skinny he's starting to gain more weight with more eating. (I recently switched back to crickets because he got so active, and he seems more of a "situational" hunter... he seems interested only when things crawl/jump out near him, but has recently started actively chasing prey.)

His warm side temps have been around 100, sometimes higher, so I added some more substrate to keep it a little cooler. He still likes to hang out there, and like I said, has become much more active and interested in eating. I'm still trying to find a way to keep it cooler, but we're going through a little heat spell in this area right now so it's difficult. He doesn't seem to be unhappy at all, and has been more exploratory in the tank.