Leopard Gecko Bowser: ceramic heat emitter, night viewing bulb, setup ?s, & all

[Bowser]

Think cork is too porous for the substrate. Think absorption of urine.

I thought about that...but cork is washable and would only be soiled a couple times until his "going spot" is established. Then its easy enough to make a cutout and use paper towel as the base. But the cork looks awesome...is light, and comes in different sizes. And like i said, it is washable, which is nice.

Perhaps there is some kind of sealer that could be applied?

 

[Bowser]

stuff I bought at the expo today!!!

Hi guys, i went to my first reptile expo today and I loved it!! I bought some stuff and got great deals! Heres what I got:

Exo Terra 36x18x12 terrarium with background
Medium Exo Terra gecko cave (for the moist hide)
Turtle shell hide
Java wood log hide
Zoo Med 24 watt UTH
10" Flukers dome lamp
Exo Terra 60 watt CHE

In total i spent $215 for everything!! Please let me know if I did well with my choices, especially the CHE...i wasnt sure what wattage to get, but being that the cage is only 12" high, I thought 100 watt might be too much.

 

[cricket4u]

Hi guys, i went to my first reptile expo today and I loved it!! I bought some stuff and got great deals! Heres what I got:

Exo Terra 36x18x12 terrarium with background
Medium Exo Terra gecko cave (for the moist hide)
Turtle shell hide
Java wood log hide
Zoo Med 24 watt UTH
10" Flukers dome lamp
Exo Terra 60 watt CHE

In total i spent $215 for everything!! Please let me know if I did well with my choices, especially the CHE...i wasnt sure what wattage to get, but being that the cage is only 12" high, I thought 100 watt might be too much.

Hold on to the CHE receipt. My geckos did not seem to like it. I monitor temps very well and so it wasn't because it was overheating. I can only conclude that it was so penetrating that it felt stuffy or dry? They started moving away from it. I replaced them with bulbs and the behavior stopped. Maybe your gecko is different. You will just have to wait and see.

Sorry, you did say you bought it at a reptile expo, so no returning it. It may work out. Different type and sizes of enclosures can hold heat differently.

 

[Bowser]

Hold on to the CHE receipt. My geckos did not seem to like it. I monitor temps very well and so it wasn't because it was overheating. I can only conclude that it was so penetrating that it felt stuffy or dry? They started moving away from it. I replaced them with bulbs and the behavior stopped. Maybe your gecko is different. You will just have to wait and see.

Sorry, you did say you bought it at a reptile expo, so no returning it. It may work out. Different type and sizes of enclosures can hold heat differently.

Yeah being at the expo made it difficult to decide on because it basically is what it is. Im concerned about the wattage...is 60 enough?

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Hi guys, i went to my first reptile expo today and I loved it!! I bought some stuff and got great deals! Heres what I got:

Exo Terra 36x18x12 terrarium with background
Medium Exo Terra gecko cave (for the moist hide)
Turtle shell hide
Java wood log hide
Zoo Med 24 watt UTH
10" Flukers dome lamp
Exo Terra 60 watt CHE

In total i spent $215 for everything!! Please let me know if I did well with my choices, especially the CHE...i wasnt sure what wattage to get, but being that the cage is only 12" high, I thought 100 watt might be too much.

Sounds good to me. Lucky Bowser! Refreshing post. Will you pick him up or will he be shipped?

Can't wait to see a picture! Then you will able to see whether 60 watts is enough . What is the room temperature?

 

[Bowser]

Sounds good to me. Lucky Bowser! Refreshing post. Will you pick him up or will he be shipped?

Can't wait to see a picture! Then you will able to see whether 60 watts is enough . What is the room temperature?

Thanks, I can't wait to post pics!! However, I do not have everything set just yet. I still need a thermo/hygrometer and the other substrate paper. I cut my cork floor tiles and they fit and look awesome! I still need the butcher paper, which is hard to find in person. I do not want to spend more $ on shipping than the actually paper itself. I refuse to. I did find 3M Scotch postal wrapping paper...it's Kraft (the company that makes the butcher paper) brown recycled paper sold by the roll. The AC Moore by me has it and it looks good. I may give it a try.

The other thing I want to make sure of is that my moist hide is an OK size

obviously this is just the base dish...this is where I'd put a sized fit Leo Pillow packed with a layer of sphagnum moss

it's roughly 5" by 3 1/4"...Bowser is a juvenile yet I believe. about 4-5 months old.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Size of moist hide seems good. How tall is that pictured hide?

You may like standard paper towels better. They'll absorb the urine, feces, and urates much better.

 

[Bowser]

Size of moist hide seems good. How tall is that pictured hide?

You may like standard paper towels better. They'll absorb the urine, feces, and urates much better.

The hide height should be pretty good...I'd say it's about 5" high

My cage has the cork tiles laid out on half the tank on the cool side. The other half I intend to use the brown paper on top of paper towel. As for the urine and feces, wherever Bowser chooses as his going spot, I will poke pin size holes in the brown paper so the urine will fall through and get absorbed by the paper towel underneath.

It's the same method as those plastic absorption pads work when you by steaks and chicken and stuff from the grocery store. They are perforated for liquid absorption.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Can't speak for Bowser . My leo chooses the cool end next to her water dish for her poop spot.

 

[panthergecko]

LOL mine too

 

[Bowser]

Can't speak for Bowser . My leo chooses the cool end next to her water dish for her poop spot.

Well that puts a damper on my decor plans LOL...I will improvise! :idea:

 

[Bowser]

cage set up!

Ok, so here is how Bowser's cage is looking...I still want to get a couple hanging plants for more cover and I am still fine tuning the layout...but basically, this is pretty much how it's going to be

Sorry for the poor quality, it was taken on my phone and there is no real light source where his cage is. But the left side is the warm side and the right is the cool side. Top left corner with cacti on both sides is the moist hide. just below it is a turtle shell hide. the middle log is large (as you can see) and is a tunnel passage all the way through with a window cut out right in front. Just behind that in the middle is the food bowl. It is a 2 dish combo in a rock formation with a cactus in between...very cool looking :biggrin:. The larger dish will be for food and the other will be where I will place the pure calcium. On the top right is the cool hide, and below it in the bottom right corner is the water dish...which is also very cool!! its a suction cup attached green leaf bowl! it's very cute and helps add a touch of color to an otherwise bleak color display.

So that's about it for the set up. I also just added cork tile to the warm side under the hides...I have my temps going with the UTH and CHE and realized it was too hot. The floor of the worm side WITHOUT the cork tiles was reading at almost 97 degrees, and that's without the CHE on! This morning I checked the temp with the cork and it came down to 84 degrees, also without the CHE. So I am imagining that the CHE will bump the temp up to the appropriate day setting of 90-95. I will make sure later.

Please let me know what you think!!! Thanks guys!!

 

[cricket4u]

What happened to the fountain? You may have to do without the cork tile if the temp is that low when added. The CHE may raise the air temp up too much before it warms up the ground. Do you have a humidity gauge? you don't want it too dry. Make sure you check it after the CHE is running for a while. Just check the final temps to see what you get.

Not as much space as you thought ha?:biggrin: Now you know why I go as large as possible. We have all these cool ideas, but once you start putting in furniture you realize there is not much space left. Regardless of what you hear at least in my experience they appreciate humidity. This is how I know. At one point I had so many reptiles, I had to use 2 rooms and one of the rooms was located in an area that was very dry. The humidity was 10-20%. I used a repti-fogger in the 2 enclosures I had in that room in. I positioned it so that only some humidity went in. Both leos moved over to where the humidity was coming in.

 

[Bowser]

What happened to the fountain? You may have to do without the cork tile if the temp is that low when added. The CHE may raise the air temp up too much before it warms up the ground. Do you have a humidity gauge? you don't want it too dry. Make sure you check it after the CHE is running for a while. Just check the final temps to see what you get.

Not as much space as you thought ha?:biggrin: Now you know why I go as large as possible. We have all these cool ideas, but once you start putting in furniture you realize there is not much space left. Regardless of what you hear at least in my experience they appreciate humidity. This is how I know. At one point I had so many reptiles, I had to use 2 rooms and one of the rooms was located in an area that was very dry. The humidity was 10-20%. I used a repti-fogger in the 2 enclosures I had in that room in. I positioned it so that only some humidity went in. Both leos moved over to where the humidity was coming in.

Thanks cricket4u! I still want to do a fountain, but that will be down the road. For now, this is the set up I am going with. And yes, you are very correct that space gets taken up pretty quickly lol!

As for the temp; without the cork tiles, the floor temp with just the Kraft paper was reading close to 97 degrees. With the cork, the floor (with the sensor on the cork tile itself) read at 84 degrees this morning. Both those temps were without the CHE. Once I go home tonight, I will put it on and see what temp I get after a few hours. But as it stands now, is 96 degrees too hot for his belly? or is 84 degrees too cold, and will the CHE balance this out for me?

As for humidity, I haven't paid much attention to that yet, as I am more concerned with temp right now, but I will check when I get home. I added water in the cage last night to help see if that would raise the humidity level, but it didn't seem to. I wanna say the humidity was around 28-32% last I checked. Now, that is also without any damp substrate in the moist hide. What do you suggest to help with the humidity??

I do wanna point out that the cork tile I laid down is really only right under the hides...meaning that there is still floor space that will probably be around 95 degrees. I feel like there are many gradients of temp for him to adjust.

 

[cricket4u]

It's going to be tricky. I have never had a leo that will tolerate over 90f under a hide. I have always provided more than one hide on the warm side. They would never use the hide which was over 90f. See most people only give them one option do to space. The gecko will either have to tolerate the excess heat or most would avoid the spot (bad thing). It is not easy to figure out what they prefer individually without options. You will need to wait and see what temp he prefers. I am pretty sure the CHE will raise the air temp up too much.

As for the humidity, I have to run a humidifier during the winter in the whole room. This is why I was excited about the fountain idea. Standing water does not raise the humidity enough. Maybe covering a section of the screen?

 

[Bowser]

It's going to be tricky. I have never had a leo that will tolerate over 90f under a hide. I have always provided more than one hide on the warm side. They would never use the hide which was over 90f. See most people only give them one option do to space. The gecko will either have to tolerate the excess heat or most would avoid the spot (bad thing). It is not easy to figure out what they prefer individually without options. You will need to wait and see what temp he prefers. I am pretty sure the CHE will raise the air temp up too much.

As for the humidity, I have to run a humidifier during the winter in the whole room. This is why I was excited about the fountain idea. Sitting water does not raise the humidity enough. Maybe covering a section of the screen?

Yeah I agree that the fountain would def. raise the humidity level.

For the ground temp, it was 95 with just the paper, but when I put the cork down the temp backed off to 84. So if you say 90 is too hot for the ground of the hide, then I should be good with the cork. The only thing I should monitor is the CHE...if anything I guess I could get a lower wattage bulb...mine is 60 right now. I could also try raising the lamp to add more clearance between it and the screen...this will help spread the heat out and not be so direct.

 

[cricket4u]

Yeah I agree that the fountain would def. raise the humidity level.

For the ground temp, it was 95 with just the paper, but when I put the cork down the temp backed off to 84. So if you say 90 is too hot for the ground of the hide, then I should be good with the cork. The only thing I should monitor is the CHE...if anything I guess I could get a lower wattage bulb...mine is 60 right now. I could also try raising the lamp to add more clearance between it and the screen...this will help spread the heat out and not be so direct.

Only your gecko can let you know what temp he prefers. However I think 84 is a bit too low. 90 has been the highest that I have ever noticed my geckos tolerating under a hide. If you read through the threads some people claim that there gecko stays under the hide at 92, so it's possible that some might like it higher. The lowest I have witnessed was 86 in which the gecko did fine (my female). I thought you said your CHE was 100, so maybe the 60 watt will be fine.

 

[Bowser]

Only your gecko can let you know what temp he prefers. However I think 84 is a bit too low. 90 has been the highest that I have ever noticed my geckos tolerating under a hide. If you read through the threads some people claim that there gecko stays under the hide at 92, so it's possible that some might like it higher. The lowest I have witnessed was 86 in which the gecko did fine (my female). I thought you said your CHE was 100, so maybe the 60 watt will be fine.

I originally planned on getting the 100 watt...but was steered away from that at the reptile expo since I was going with a 12" high tank. They said the 100 watts would be way too much direct heat at that height.

Like I said before, I have enough floor space and gradient in which Bowser should be comfy. He can move around and let me know what's good and what's not, then I will make changes accordingly. Like you said, HE'S gotta let me know what is just right!

 

[cricket4u]

I originally planned on getting the 100 watt...but was steered away from that at the reptile expo since I was going with a 12" high tank. They said the 100 watts would be way too much direct heat at that height.

Like I said before, I have enough floor space and gradient in which Bowser should be comfy. He can move around and let me know what's good and what's not, then I will make changes accordingly. Like you said, HE'S gotta let me know what is just right!

I am very proud of you!:biggrin:

I really like the item in the center. Do you mind posting a link to the exact item when you get a chance?

 

[cricket4u]

Is it any of these? The one you have looks bigger and nicer. I become excited like a little kid when I see new items.:yahoo:

Bird Cage, Java Wood Perch, Avian Supplies, Pluck No More, Bird Food