Ok, things have been going well, but I need to make it better. So help me out if ya can. We purchased a young Leo back in early August and introduced it into what I thought was a pretty decent habitat. The Leo is doing well and growing like crazy, but we had a close call the other night due to the the change to cooler weather and I left open the bedroom window that night. We are using a 20 gallon tank with a sub of Repti-Sand from about 1" deep in the front to almost 3 1/2" deep in the rear half. It covers the hides on both sides, warm and cool. I use a 75 watt spot bulb with reflector on the far left for daylight and a 75 watt dark light bulb with a reflector in the center for night. They are both on digital timers for 12 hours alternating light shifts and sit on top of a screen top. I use an "ACURITE" digital 3 way temp monitor (in, out, and humidity) to keep an eye on the temps. Humidity runs from 28 to 46. The temp probe was used for several days to monitor temps in several locations. Inside the warm hide, the cool hide, surface temp on both warm and cools sides and ended up in what I figured was the most critical location, just below the sand surface outside the warm hide. The surface temp during daylight mode is an average of about 89 to 91 degrees. Inside the warm hide it seems to stay about 7 to 8 degrees cooler. In the night mode the surface temp avarages about 83 degrees. The cool side hide runs to about 76 to 80 degrees at night. The warm side hide has a small dish filled with moss and is always kept moist and changed every few days. The cool side is dry. The sheds have gone well with no problems. The Leo's primary choice is the warm hide but some times spend time in the cool hide at night. So here is what happened. I left the windows open the other night and the temp dropped pretty good. The tank is about 15 feet away from the window. I woke up at about 3:00 am and noticed there were no tracks in the freshly cleaned sand. The crickets were still alive and well after the 8:00 PM feeding at that's not normal. I lifted and checked the hides and found the Leo in the cool side and laying on it's belly and it's eyes closed. I went to pick it up and it was not responsive. It was cold to the touch and it's legs shook when it did try to move. I wrapped it in a cotton cloth and held it until it started to respond then held it under the dark light to help warm it. After about an hour it started to move normally and became active. I turned on the daylight bulb and warmed the tank and returned to Leo to the habitat. It returned to the warm hide and remained there for the rest of the night and the next day. The next night it appeared to be back to normal and eating and activity went as usual. So with this observation I assume we had a near death experience because of the temp drop. (Only to about 74 degrees on the surface, measured on the warm side.) My planned steps to eliminate this happening again are to install an undertank heating pad on the outside bottom on the warm side, a pad liner on the inside over the heat pad on the inside and the sand sub over that. OK, am I going the right direction? So what I need to know is I want to use a thermo controller with the pad and the lights. I understand there are models that you can plug both the pad and the lights into. The one I have seen is inexpensive and only has one plug in and a thumbwheel to change the temp. I understand there are models available with multi plug ins and you can program bottom and top temps for auto on/off to maintain the desired temps. Am I right? Any advice as to brands or particular models and any comments as to quality and reliablity would be well accepted. Any comments as to a better solution, other than "Shut the Damn Window Ya Moron," would be taken into consideration also. And I did shut the window out of respect for my new room mate. (I must say that's more than I would do for my x-wife, may her frozen footzies raise goose bumps on somebody elses butt.) Only thing to keep in mind is the near future expansion to a much larger habitat. I have a spare 65 gallon tank in storage and my daughter and I have drawn up a plan for a "Leo Paradise" with plans to add another Leo or two soon, before this one gets too big. Whatever equipment I purchase will need to be able to adapt to any size output if possible, other than the heating pads. And one more quick question. Are Leos much for climbing? I did put in a small tree branch made out of plastic and it did show a little interest but was having a hard time keeping a grip on the plastic. Would a piece of real drift wood, bleached and cleaned of course, be of any value to the little critter? Thanks for any input you can provide. The life you save may be a geckos. Snaggletooth, Lizard EMT
Hey there, Sounds like you've got a good start, and you certainly seem to pay LOTS of attention to detail.... First, Shut the damn window ya moron The heatpad idea does sound great, chances are, if it was 74 on the ground, then the air would be a bit cooler, with the substrate still holding a little of the daytime heat... If the ReptiSand is working good for you, then stick with it, but you could also use the Washed Playsand from home depot. We've been using that with Leos, viper geckos & beardies for 3 years and never had a problem with it. Works out MUCH cheaper than the commercially branded substrates they sell in the pet store and is just as good (often much safer too). Yeah, the heatpad idea does sound good... There are several brands you could go for. A buddy of mine swears by the Cobra Heatpads... I've never used them personally, but they're supposed to be one of the best. We've used the ZooMed ones for permanent tank fixtures. They look like a mousepad that permanently glues to the bottom of a tank (so they're not very portable if you want to switch tanks, they can be almost impossible to remove from the tank without damaging it), and we use an ExoTerra one with our hospital tank. The ExoTerra one is also designed to be stuck on, but we have it flat on the surface of the desk with the tank on top (the glass is about 1/3" away from the pad), and the glass gets PLENTY hot enough (probably a little too hot without the carpet n' whatnot in the tank). With an inch or two of sand in there, it should be plenty to keep it nice n' snug for a leo, but not too hot that burning risks occur. One thing to be careful of though... If, during your research, the topics of Rheostats comes up, think VERY carefully before getting a ZooMed one. They seem to be notorious for starting house fires. Rheostats are kind of like dimmer switches; They control the current flowing through the device so that you can cool the heat pad down if necessary. Sometimes a rheostat is needed if you discover the heatpad is getting too hot, but yeah, do some research. We've not had to get one ourselves, so I really couldn't recommend a brand to you though. Another thing you could do, which we do with our beardies, is to cover their enclosure with a towel at night. We don't use night bulbs with our beardies, and we just put a towel over their tanks at night to help keep the warm air in - Glass can get cold very quickly. If you have a night light on, you could just wrap a towel around the glass parts of the tank, leaving the top open. That would help a little bit.
Thanks Axe, I did go with the UTH by ZooMed, but did not go with the thermo controller. The pad does a great job by itself and the temp inside the hide has been a constant 88 degrees since it warmed up. The lil critter loved it. It dug a hole down into the sand, glad I used the thick liner on the bottom, and curled up. The only thing I think I'll do is wire up a dimmer for the 75 watt spot so I can control the tank air temp a bit more but I can't see any reason to try to vary the pad at all. The night temp is fine now with the pad in place even with the window open, hey, just a bit. I did get a laugh out of the ZooMed UTH instructions. So what it breaks down to is if you actually follow the instruction to the letter, and apply it as directed, you void the warrenty by doing so. You're not supposed to remove the UTH from the tank if it fails to return it. So all I can hope for is that when I apply one to my 65 gallon tank, it fails and I get to ship it back still attached to the 65 with the $2.00 to cover all shipping and handling charges. What can I say? I got a weird sense of humor. They deserve it for making such a limp stand in support of their product. And in the future, the playsand will probably be the way I go. But I had just washed out 75 lbs of river gravel and 5 lbs of Later-Rite sub for another aquarium and when I saw that nice little bag of dry, clean sand, I figured this is the way to go today. Call me lazy. As for the detail thing, I'll take that as a compliment. I try to teach my daughter the value of having pets and the value of making an effort to give them the best home possible. I see so many people that act like any critter is disposable. She has a red slider turtle that I got her, over 8 years ago. She may still have it when she goes to college. The Leo may live what, 20 years or so? I hope she still has it then. The only acceptable reason for an animal to die in my house is old age. But enough. You have once again been of great help and we thank you for that. Keep up the great board and we will be around.
That's great that you managed to get the heating pad setup... And you're right about ZooMed instructions, they're not always the best (although they do make pretty good products)... In your situation, I'd probably have done the same thing with the sand.. There's no point going out and buying something, when what you've already got will do the job nicely. Yes, it was meant as a compliment, and your daughter seems to have a great role model to learn from. I was brought up in an animal household myself, with similar input from my dad. My dad's flown birds of prey for about the last 40 years, so I was constantly around them (and in charge of raising some of the food for them) almost since I could walk. Yeah, it's hard to think that those small lil guys can live 20 years or more. Here's to celebrating your leo's 20th birthday in a couple of decades or so.
