Stephanieml1
Member
I've had santee for about 3 weeks now (I was told he's about 2years)
He recently just shed most of his skin and was a bright yellow color however I recently discovered that he turned somewhat dark. When he's in his viv he's dark and has stress marks but when he's out he's a bright yellow and orange and is actively running around however lately he's been "digging" and hiding. I want to know what am I doing wrong.
I have a 55 gallon
A reptisun 10.0 in a dual aluminum dome lamp along with a 100 watt basking light
The temps are around 100 on the basking site and low 80s on the cooler side. ( I have a ceramic heat emitter on the cooling side otherwise it drops to low 70s)
He was about 5in away from the basking site but has the option to get lower. He basks on rocks that I collected from outside. He seemed fine At that distance for about a week until he started showing darkening on his aides so I thought he was too close to the basking site which read at 105 so I lowered his rocks and had the temp to be 100 but he still remained with dark color and stress marks.
I also have another Reptisun 10.0 uvb 18 in t8 tube to light his whole viv because the cooler side tends to get really dark without it( it's in a plastic fixture without the plastic covering the bulb) however it is mounted on top of the cage so Plan to put it inside the cage ( he is about 6-7 in from the basking light and I plan to get rid of the compact Uvb bulb bc I've learned they're bad and get the t8 tube within 5in close to him)
However aside from wrong compact bulb, is there another reason why he might be showing dark spotting with stress marks only in his Viv and not outside ?
*this is an updated version of the original post to provide more insight