Hi! I posted on here about a week ago when I was considering adopting a beardie. Anyway, I went through with it yesterday and am now the proud and slightly nervous owner of this lovely creature:
This is a few hours after I got her and rearranged her sticks a bit. She seemed to like this as a basking spot. Temperatures are 100-105 on her basking rock (using a zoomed thermometer with the probe placed directly on the rock). She was definitely a little nervous yesterday but ate some collard greens and then chilled out hard on the branch for the rest of the evening.
Couple of questions: First, am I doing everything right with my temperature measurements? I have an infrared heat gun and it reads anywhere from 5-10 degrees cooler than the thermometer probe when I point it at the same spot. With the gun I generally get readings of 98-101 on the basking rock and a few degrees cooler on the wood. The thermometer probe also seems to fluctuate a lot when I make small adjustments to the basking light. Should the probe be resting directly on the rock? Or should it be up in the air a bit? She sat on the probe for a while yesterday, which also seemed to affect the readings a bit. When in doubt I'm inclined to trust the temperature gun, which would mean the basking spot is maybe a little on the cool side?
Second, I inherited her tank and lighting setup from her previous owner and I'm in the process of making upgrades. I have a reptisun t5 tube uvb light arriving tomorrow and a carolina custom cages fixture for it. I'm also getting a fluker's repta-clamp fixture to replace her current cheap metal one. She currently has a coil uvb fixture (I know) so I've placed it as close as possible to her basking light in the hopes that this will give her enough uvb until I can install the new fixture and bulb.
That's pretty much it for now. I'm super excited to have her but I want to make sure she has everything she needs to be happy. Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated. I'll probably make another introduction post soon once I figure out her name and get some better photos!
This is a few hours after I got her and rearranged her sticks a bit. She seemed to like this as a basking spot. Temperatures are 100-105 on her basking rock (using a zoomed thermometer with the probe placed directly on the rock). She was definitely a little nervous yesterday but ate some collard greens and then chilled out hard on the branch for the rest of the evening.
Couple of questions: First, am I doing everything right with my temperature measurements? I have an infrared heat gun and it reads anywhere from 5-10 degrees cooler than the thermometer probe when I point it at the same spot. With the gun I generally get readings of 98-101 on the basking rock and a few degrees cooler on the wood. The thermometer probe also seems to fluctuate a lot when I make small adjustments to the basking light. Should the probe be resting directly on the rock? Or should it be up in the air a bit? She sat on the probe for a while yesterday, which also seemed to affect the readings a bit. When in doubt I'm inclined to trust the temperature gun, which would mean the basking spot is maybe a little on the cool side?
Second, I inherited her tank and lighting setup from her previous owner and I'm in the process of making upgrades. I have a reptisun t5 tube uvb light arriving tomorrow and a carolina custom cages fixture for it. I'm also getting a fluker's repta-clamp fixture to replace her current cheap metal one. She currently has a coil uvb fixture (I know) so I've placed it as close as possible to her basking light in the hopes that this will give her enough uvb until I can install the new fixture and bulb.
That's pretty much it for now. I'm super excited to have her but I want to make sure she has everything she needs to be happy. Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated. I'll probably make another introduction post soon once I figure out her name and get some better photos!