Thermostat and Lamp Set-Up...

[corvettefan]

I'm in the beginning stages of seperating my two geckos. After buying a new 10 gal. I need to get two lamps, a day and night bulb, and a thermostat. Is a thermostat absolutly needed or can yout tell how warm it will be by the wattage? I figure that I'll have either two lamps on one side (day bulb for day hours, night for night hours) Is this a good setup?

 

[acpart]

I don't know if you'll get much mileage out of a lamp with a thermostat. The thermostat will just keep turning the lamp on and off when it gets too hot which can be annoying to humans and geckos. It's a better bet to get an inexpensive under tank heater (UTH) like zoo-med and not use lamps at all. I have experimented with tanks and UTH's and found that a 10 gallon tank with 1/4" thick ceramic tile and a mini (1-5 gallon) zoo-med UTH will keep the hot side temp in the low 90's. When I sell my complete set-up to people, that's how I do it, along with a written explanation of how it's working.

Aliza

 

[LizMarie]

I agree with Aliza. If anything light dimmers or rhetostats should be used with light bulbs because they reduce the power going to the device while a thermostat should be used with a heater because it will turn on and off on its own to maintain the temps by itself, just my own personal opinion. Like I wrote in your other thread I'm not a big fan of bulbs, heat emitted will depend on wattage, distance from the tank itself, ambient temps, etc your going to have to play around with it so you must have a digital thermometer present. Also remember you have provide a temp gradient.

 

[corvettefan]

Okay then, I'll snag a UTH.

 

[corvettefan]

I don't know if you'll get much mileage out of a lamp with a thermostat. The thermostat will just keep turning the lamp on and off when it gets too hot which can be annoying to humans and geckos. It's a better bet to get an inexpensive under tank heater (UTH) like zoo-med and not use lamps at all. I have experimented with tanks and UTH's and found that a 10 gallon tank with 1/4" thick ceramic tile and a mini (1-5 gallon) zoo-med UTH will keep the hot side temp in the low 90's. When I sell my complete set-up to people, that's how I do it, along with a written explanation of how it's working.

Aliza

What if paper towels are used?

 

[Superior]

It probably won't make to much of a difference. You can just adjust your rheostat or thermostat to the correct temp if it does, anyway.

 

[corvettefan]

What will happen is I'll get a small UTH and use tiles like Aliza said do I know it's in the low 90's.