What temps are correct?

[StangWolf]

Alright,

I've got my tank set up to the extent that it's got it's UTHs, Thermostats, around a 1/4" to 1/2" layer of fine playground sand with two layers of paper towels down over that, and then tile on top of the paper towels.

My temps on the warm side are now 91 for one side (my tank is split by a piece of plexiglass so that I have two separate enclosures in one tank) and around 92 now on the other side, the cool sides are around 75 and the ambient temps around an inch from the floor on the warm side is around 85 (with a red bulb on for nighttime viewing and to keep the ambient temps up since my room drops to around 68 at night, and as I've found out, it really effects the temps in the tank at night.

SO basically

Warm side floor temps: 91 & 92
Cool side floor temps: 75
Warm side ambient temps: 85

let me know if I need to do any adjusting, I'm still working on getting things running right so that once I order my geckos their home will be all set and all I'll have to do is put them in and let them chill and get adjusted.

and oddly enough, or maybe not odd, I thought the layer of sand (which serves a couple purposes for me) would keep the temps down, but since I put it in, the temps on the surface are warming up quicker and the two UTHs are now staying around the same temp, instead of one being like 88 and the other being more around 95! So I'm hoping the sand is helping, and don't worry the geckos cannot get to it, that's why I put the paper towels down between the sand and the bottom of the tiles.

So let me know what ya'll think and if you think I need to adjust the temps any.

Thanks
~Jessica

 

[Scott&Nikki]

As far as the temps are concerned, everything in fine. My personal opinion is the sand is too dangerous, even covered with paper towels. When I had paper towels, my leo would climb under them all of the time. I don't know if youve seen any of the sand battles on here, but sand can be deadly, especially to young leos. When they get older, its up to you, but I feel it is an unnecessary risk.

 

[StangWolf]

even with the tiles over the top of it? I figure it'd be pretty dang hard for the geckos to get under the tiles

 

[Scott&Nikki]

oh wow, i completely missed the tile part. in that case, sounds perfect to me. sorry about that.

 

[StangWolf]

oh lol phew scared me XD

and it's no problem, the sand is only used to hold some of the heat (since it does get cold in my room and during the winter here we sometimes get ice storms that knock power out and I figure the longer the heat will stay in the better incase that happens)

that and it's picked up the floor of the tank so that those nifty dens with the magnets, the ones you can look into without disturbing the geckos, don't tilt over because of the edge that's at the bottom of the tank, the sand with the tiles on top picks it up enough so that the edge isn't in the way now.

Yeah...hope that makes sense lol

anyway, thanks

 

[rhino43grr]

so what are the paper towels there for?

 

[StangWolf]

eh just precaution, because not all the tiles fit together perfectly, I mean there's not much space at all between them, but I'm not wanting to take any chances so the paper towels are there to basically stop an access by geckos to the sand.

Hope that makes sense

 

[rhino43grr]

you really went all out to protect your geckos from the evil of sand, huh?

i think the 'evils of sand' talk may have scared you into unnecessary worrying, unfortunately. some people seem to have the idea that if there is sand anywhere in the same room with the gecko they will seek it out and try to intentionally impact themselves which is a little extreme in my opinion. i have sand in between the tile in my tank so there aren't cracks for food items to hide in and i'm not an expert but i don't understand when people think even the most miniscule amount of sand will instantly kill their gecko, they're wild animals, i highly doubt they would instinctively and intentionally try to gobble up sand unless they were desperately in need of minerals or calcium. i think the whole problem with sand stems from people feeding directly on the sand (leo getting a mouthful of sand along with the crix/mealies/etc.) or thinking calci-sand is a replacement for supplying actual calcium. with the information many pet stores have been known to give, there's a good chance that it's a combination of the two and simply not knowing they need to have a calcium dish in the first place.
the people who use sand and have used it for years without issues probably feed their geckos in a separate enclosure, use very fine sand, or both. it all depends on how careful you are.

anyway, sorry for the tangent, temps look good to me :main_thumbsup:

 

[StangWolf]

wow, thanks for the advice, I've been jumped on before when mentioning sand (not here at another forum) so yeah, I guess I'm a little paranoid about that.

Like you said, I doubt that the geckos will seek it out to eat it like it's some sort of gecko candy, no, I just don't want to have to worry about it I guess, that and the paper towels keep things neat I guess, I don't like the sand getting up on the tiles.

that and it's simple ol' fine grain playground sand, and I plan to provide a calcium dish as well as putting their mealworms in a feeding dish (crickets probably on occasion as long as mealworms don't turn out to be their equivalent of vegetables and refuse to eat them and want something else like crickets, I hope not XD I don't want to deal with crickets again lol - had to with my anole). So unless they get crickets they won't even be eating anything off the tiles.

So really, as you said, there should be no problems what so ever even if I didn't put the paper towels down.

So yeah, I'm probably being WAY over cautious, WAY WAY over cautious, but it's not that much of a hassle to put the paper towels down over the sand, so it's not a HUGE deal.

Thanks for the advice though, it'll help me to be a little more relaxed now ^^ and I won't spazz haha, I'm new to all of this.

It doesn't help either when you get some people that are like "OMG YOU HAVE SAND IN THERE WITH THEM!?!? YOU NEED TO TAKE IT OUT NOW!!!" and some are like "What's the problem? I've had my geckos on sand and have never had a problem with them." so it's a tiny bit confusing sometimes. Leaves me feeling like "alright...O.O...who do I listen too!?!?"

anyway, yeah sorry for rambling, thanks again ^^

 

[rhino43grr]

i know what you mean about the conflicting stories thing, definitely. the sand/no sand argument seems to be the dividing line in the gecko world from what i can tell... that and some breeding ethics type issues. i hope i'm not steering you down the wrong path somehow by not stressing the substrate issue as much, but i'm just sort of laid back by nature... heck, i moved from pa to maryland this summer without even having a job at the time and things just fell into place perfectly so i'm pretty lucky i guess.

 

[StangWolf]

oh no no it's cool ^^ I appreciate you sharing your insight with me, and yes from what little I've seen of the Leopard Gecko world, the sand/no sand issue is a dividing factor for some.

I personally like the tile thing best, easy to clean and it looks good too. So I'll probably end up sticking with that.

Ya know, I just realized that the half of the UTHs that's closest to the wire is getting the substrate up to 92 but the other end is more around like 80! Both of them are like that, any suggestions?

I've got them each on their own thermostat, or is it a rheostat since it only has the little dial that runs from Low to High, no numbers (it's sold as a thermostat though - two of those Zoo Med ReptiTemp 500R's). I've got those turned wide open, so I have NO idea what's up.

Well actually I've got my red light heat bulb over the left hand side enclosure and the end that's cooler is around 84 on it, not 80. The ambient temp is around 81 now on both (but my room is down to 69 now instead of 75). I have no idea what's up.

 

[rhino43grr]

you have two uths on the same tank or on two separate tanks? i had just one on the bottom, but moved an old one from an empty tank onto the side above the other uth to hopefully raise the temps a bit.

what are you using to measure the temps? i have one of those zoomed thermometers with the wire and probe, but it's so inconsistent and if the probe gets shifted even a tiny bit up off the tile it reads about 4 degrees lower. and my red "party" bulb from wallyworld just burned out so i'll have to get another one soon to keep the temps up a little more.
i think it should be fine, you could even take the bulb away from the cool side and just let it be room temperature because the uth on the other side should warm it up a tiny bit.

 

[StangWolf]

well I've got a 48"Long x 18"Wide x 17"Tall tank, from glasscages.com, and it's got this brace down the middle of it on the bottom side, so I wouldn't be able to properly heat (or get the UTH to stick really) with just one, so I got two.

I've got some of those ESU Digital Thermometers with the probes taped down to the tile, hopefully that'll help get a closer to truth reading. The red bulb is over the warm end of the tank, just pointed at the cooler end of where the UTH is (hope that make some sense lol)

Here are my temps as of now (1:23pm Central Time):

Temps in my room: 75
Warm side temps:
- right side enclosure (on the cooler end of the UTH): 84
- left side enclosure (on the cooler end of the UTH with the red bulb over it): 94.4
Cool side temps: both 75 (room temp)
Ambient temps:
- right side enclosure: 86.8
- left side enclosure: 89.8

I'm getting another red bulb set up for my right side enclosure, so that should help get it up with my left side, that and it looks like the temps dropped last night because the room temp dropped so you think that'll be fine?

I can take a pic of my enclosure if you'd like (I've got some pics of it totally bare on another thread if that'll help), or I can take some updated pics. To give you an idea of how I have things set up right now. If that'll help give you a better picture than the mental one I've tried to construct lol

 

[rhino43grr]

is there a divider in the middle so it's like 2 separate tanks or just one big one?

 

[StangWolf]

yep there's a divider, a piece of plexiglass I put in. So it's basically one big tank 48"Lx18"Wx17"T that's been divided into two smaller enclosures measuring 24"Lx18"Wx17"T each.

and actually I think I've got the temps working now with some adjusting here's what I have now as far as temps go at 6:53pm Central Time:

Temp in the room: 75
Warm side temps:
- right-hand side enclosure: 89.6
- left-hand side enclosure: 89.7
Cool side temps:
- right-hand side enclosure: 74.6
- left-hand side enclosure: 76
Ambient temps:
- right-hand side enclosure: 85
- left-hand side enclosure: 87

I think I'll still need to do some adjusting with the thermostats but I think that I've just about got it. Let me know what you think.

 

[Scott&Nikki]

Jessica, I would love to see pictures if you have them. And just to go back on the sand topic. I completely agree with Greg on everything. I mean, even I made a big deal earlier in this thread about sand before i realized you had tiles over it. As careful as I am about the whole impaction issue, I do have sand between my tiles like Greg explained, as well. It has been like that for close to a year now with no problems. When I first did it, I caught her licking the sand a little which made me very uneasy. She didnt eat for a couple weeks and then finally pooped and I found a good amount of sand in it. After that I never noticed it happening anymore. It was almost like she "learned her lesson" type of thing.

Back to the real issue of the temps...My personal opinion is to bump the warm-side up closer to 92-93. Obviously everyone and all leos are different, I just found that work best for me. And also, the ambient temp isnt really important, since the heat they need is surface heat for digesting their food. Obviously you can measure it if you want, I'm just saying if it's a hassle, there is no need.

 

[StangWolf]

thanks guys,

and no worries about the sand, it's cool, I'm not too worried about it, and everything I've done hasn't been a hassle for me at all, otherwise I'd have probably found another way around it or another way to achieve what I wanted XD

thanks for the advice though, now I won't spazz about the smallest of things lol

and as far as the temps go, it's looking like it'll be pretty easy to get them adjusted now, I've been back and forth throughout the day and tonight checking the temps and adjusting the thermostats to see how much of an adjustment does what to the temps. It's working wonderfuly now! And actually I'm finding it pretty easy to keep the temps at 92, that seems to be the spot, I can get them lower and even higher now, but 92 is just a sweet spot for the UTHs I guess.

As far as the ambient temps go, I figure since I already had a couple of the Flukers Thermo-Hygrometers left over from when I had my anole, I may as well put them to use, so I've stuck them about an inch off the floor on the warm side to measure ambient temps just for the heck of it really. It's not a hassle at all. No worries, I remember that they like the belly heat the best, so that's what I'm REALLY working on right now, tweaking now.

and just as a side question, not really important, just curious: in ya'lls sigs, the number thing is for number and gender of ya'lls pets right? like if I read Scott&Nikki's right ya'll have 1 female(?) leopard gecko. Correct me if I mixed it up, I think it's a pretty cool way to show what animals you have and I'd like to do something like that with my sig, especially since I'll have my leo girls on Tuesday!

 

[Scott&Nikki]

If it said "1.2.4" That would be: 1 Male, 2 Females, 4 Unsexed. If it just has two numbers, it is: male, female.

 

[StangWolf]

oh yay thank you ^^ lol that was TOTALLY unrelated to this thread, but I thought it'd be kinda silly to make a whole new thread just to ask that

thank you again