Sulcata heating Q

[dan bristow]

Hi everyone. I was wondering if the following is an acceptable way of heating a sulcata of approx 5 inch length?
I've have always heated from above using a thermostatically controlled ceramic heater or flood bulb and then provided uv via a tube but recently I've noticed that because my reptile room is getting warmer,it is reducing the basking temps to a slightly lower temp then I'd like. So my question is this- could I provide the temperature requirements by heating the room to 75-80F and then provide one of the zoomed reptitherm habitat heaters http://zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDetail.php?EntryID=357&DatabaseID=2&SearchID=5 for its basking spot? And if I did,would I need to dial back the temp slightly or would just plugging it in be ok as it has it's own cut out?
Many thanks
Dan

 

[dan bristow]

Can anyone Help me on this?
Thanks

 

[Dizisdalife]

I think the ideal is to provide a basking temp, a warm ambient temp and then a cooler temp, plus a night time temp for sleeping. How this is a achieved depends on the size of enclosure and the heating equipment. When my sulcata was a baby I used CHE's on a thermostat to set the cool to mid range temp (I used 80F - 85F) and a Power Sun (60 watt) to heat the basking spot and provide UVB. I used a temp gun to set the height of the basking lamp so that it was about 100F at the height of his shell. At night I turned off the basking light and turned down the thermostat just a little. This worked for me because the enclosure was covered almost 100%. That helped stabilize the temperatures and the humidity, although it did take some monitoring to keep the humidity elevated enough for the baby tortoise.

I hope this helps you. The challenge is always to provide the four basic temperature zones, UV, and humidity your tortoise requires with the equipment that you have. To do that I needed to buy a temp gun and a good thermometer to get the feed back on my setup. Without those I would have been guessing and never sure my equipment was doing what needed to be done for the tortoise,

 

[Tom]

In my reptile room I use oil filled radiant heaters on my own thermostats to maintain an ambient of 80 day and night, year round. I then provide each enclosure with a basking spot near 100 for around 12 hours a day. I did an experiment for a few months with a similar heat mat with an over head fluorescent for light and it worked okay. I don't know the ZooMed mat and what the temps do with it. I had mine set to around 95-98, if I remember correctly. The light and heat mat were on the same timer and it all worked great. They moved on and off of it as needed to thermoregulate.

I say try it out and let us know what you think.

 

[tyrs4u]

Hi everyone. I was wondering if the following is an acceptable way of heating a sulcata of approx 5 inch length?
I've have always heated from above using a thermostatically controlled ceramic heater or flood bulb and then provided uv via a tube but recently I've noticed that because my reptile room is getting warmer,it is reducing the basking temps to a slightly lower temp then I'd like. So my question is this- could I provide the temperature requirements by heating the room to 75-80F and then provide one of the zoomed reptitherm habitat heaters http://zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDetail.php?EntryID=357&DatabaseID=2&SearchID=5 for its basking spot? And if I did,would I need to dial back the temp slightly or would just plugging it in be ok as it has it's own cut out?
Many thanks
Dan

Cheaper at Petco online $33.74 just bought four new ones. ;-)

 

[dan bristow]

Thanks for the replies. Tom, my set up sounds pretty much the same. An oil filled rad keeping the general day and night temps of the rep room. As we always aim for a surface temp in the basking spot ,that's why I thought the pad would work as I can set the surface temp to 95-100F and put a quality uv above it. And turn them off at night. I will give it a try and let you all know how I get on .
Thanks

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Hi everyone. I was wondering if the following is an acceptable way of heating a sulcata of approx 5 inch length?
I've have always heated from above using a thermostatically controlled ceramic heater or flood bulb and then provided uv via a tube but recently I've noticed that because my reptile room is getting warmer,it is reducing the basking temps to a slightly lower temp then I'd like. So my question is this- could I provide the temperature requirements by heating the room to 75-80F and then provide one of the zoomed reptitherm habitat heaters http://zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDetail.php?EntryID=357&DatabaseID=2&SearchID=5 for its basking spot? And if I did,would I need to dial back the temp slightly or would just plugging it in be ok as it has it's own cut out?
Many thanks
Dan

Cheaper at Petco online $33.74 just bought four new ones. ;-)

Thanks but I'm in the uk and we are 240v electric so they wouldn't work here. The cheapest I can find here is about £43.... Things always seem loads cheaper in the US!