Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[Kaida]

I got my baby leo on Thursday and she seems to be settling in fine. But I'm having problems with monitoring the temps in her viv. There's a heat-mat on a thermostat, and the thermostat's set to between 84 and 88 degrees farenheit, but the tiles (substrate) seem very hot to the touch. The temperature sensor is right on the tiles.

I tried putting a stick on digital thermometer, you know the ones for fish tanks, directly on the tiles, and it didn't show anything. I'm worried in case this is because it was off the scale. Where should the thermometer be, on the tiles or on the wall of the viv?

There is a large temperature gradient because it's a 3' viv, so if she wants to Echo can move up the cooler end. She seems to spend most time up the warm end though.

Please help!

[Scott W]

You ideally need to know two temps, basking (substrate temp) and ambient air temp.

The substrate basking temp shouldn't be higher than 90f, with the ambient temp around 80 - 86f would be good. Don't worry want you set the stat at, it's more important to rely on what the thermometer reads.

Ideally you need a glass thermometer, place this on the substrate.
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