2nd hatchday and Brumation breaks

[Chris.]

Luis had his 2nd hatchday this week and decided to take a break from brumating today. Since the basking light is still of, I took him to the living room to warm up. After sleeping for almost a month he was quite thirsty.

So did Lilith (no hatchday but she turned 8 months today). She did not drink very much but took some arugula from me and stayed under a heat lamp for a couple of hours.

They are both doing good with weights of 415g/385g.
Lilly is loosing around 1g per week it seems, while Luis is bang on constant, which might be the age difference.
Both didn't show any interest in food, so I'll keep the temps pretty low (high 60s during the day and low 60s at night).

 

[NickAVD]

It's nice to see your whole dragon family!
I wonder if they decided to wake up or if they'll sleep some more? My Foxy hasn't started deep brumation yet, he's just very lazy, but he continues to eat his bugs, but he's cut down on the portions a lot.

 

[Chris.]

It's nice to see your whole dragon family!
I wonder if they decided to wake up or if they'll sleep some more? My Foxy hasn't started deep brumation yet, he's just very lazy, but he continues to eat his bugs, but he's cut down on the portions a lot.

Good to hear Foxy is still kicking Are you trying to encourage him to go into brumation or do you leave everything as it is?

Since I did try to put them into brumation on "my terms", this is exactly what I wonder as well. But Lilly is already back in her cave right now and I guess Luis will be soon.
Interesting is that I was gone on a business trip for the whole week and they came out after I peeked into their hides upon returning...probably a coincidence but sweet anyway

 

[NickAVD]

Good to hear Foxy is still kicking Are you trying to encourage him to go into brumation or do you leave everything as it is?

Since I did try to put them into brumation on "my terms", this is exactly what I wonder as well. But Lilly is already back in her cave right now and I guess Luis will be soon.
Interesting is that I was gone on a business trip for the whole week and they came out after I peeked into their hides upon returning...probably a coincidence but sweet anyway

I didn't force his brumation and let him do as he wanted. Foxy spent a couple of weeks in his hide, but he didn't sleep, he lay and peeped at us, sometimes he closed one eye. Once every three days I showed him a bowl with roaches and then he came out to eat. Now he practically doesn't climb into his hide, he lies on the warm side, sometimes he moves to the hot zone. He still eats a little - once every three days, he refuses greenery for now. He is not even interested in hornworms. This worries me, so I try to load the roaches with greenery as much as possible. I hope after some time he will start eating everything.

 

[xp29]

Luis had his 2nd hatchday this week and decided to take a break from brumating today. Since the basking light is still of, I took him to the living room to warm up. After sleeping for almost a month he was quite thirsty.

So did Lilith (no hatchday but she turned 8 months today). She did not drink very much but took some arugula from me and stayed under a heat lamp for a couple of hours.

They are both doing good with weights of 415g/385g.
Lilly is loosing around 1g per week it seems, while Luis is bang on constant, which might be the age difference.
Both didn't show any interest in food, so I'll keep the temps pretty low (high 60s during the day and low 60s at night).

View attachment 93092
View attachment 93091 View attachment 93093 View attachment 93094

Absolutely gorgeous
It's good seeing pictures again I've kindda missed them.
Sinatra has been down for about 2 months now give or take. I dragged him out last weekend to give him water and man did I get the stink eye lol. He drank it but even his lapping was slow and according to Christina looked sleepy. Zsa Zsa however is still going strong.
I was really surprised Lily went down this year as she is a couple months younger than Zsa Zsa. You'll have to be careful when they wake or you just might become a grandfather lmao (and by grandfather I'm meaning up to 3 or 4 clutches that are between 20 to 30 hatchlings each for one tie-up) right after brumation is their prime breeding time

 

[Chris.]

I didn't force his brumation and let him do as he wanted. Foxy spent a couple of weeks in his hide, but he didn't sleep, he lay and peeped at us, sometimes he closed one eye. Once every three days I showed him a bowl with roaches and then he came out to eat. Now he practically doesn't climb into his hide, he lies on the warm side, sometimes he moves to the hot zone. He still eats a little - once every three days, he refuses greenery for now. He is not even interested in hornworms. This worries me, so I try to load the roaches with greenery as much as possible. I hope after some time he will start eating everything.

Sounds like Luis right before I dimmed the lights and droped the temps. He would never refuse a roach. Unfortunately for him I only have a single controler so if Lilly goes down, he does as well. Well unless I start bodging some things but it was about time anyway

Absolutely gorgeous
It's good seeing pictures again I've kindda missed them.
Sinatra has been down for about 2 months now give or take. I dragged him out last weekend to give him water and man did I get the stink eye lol. He drank it but even his lapping was slow and according to Christina looked sleepy. Zsa Zsa however is still going strong.
I was really surprised Lily went down this year as she is a couple months younger than Zsa Zsa. You'll have to be careful when they wake or you just might become a grandfather lmao (and by grandfather I'm meaning up to 3 or 4 clutches that are between 20 to 30 hatchlings each for one tie-up) right after brumation is their prime breeding time

Lilly was a bit of a wildcard but she started to go down mid september on her own, even before Luis did. If she doesn't eat, I thought I might as well do a full brumation for her and not interfere with her instincts. She is not fully asleep however, her eyes are open when I peek in and I'll take her out every other week just to be sure her first winter goes smoothly.
Don't worry, they are strictly separate:

It is good to hear that Sinatra is doing good in brumation and Zsa Zsa is still up and strong to keep you company. Did you drop the temps for him or just keep letting him do his thing?

 

[xp29]

Sounds like Luis right before I dimmed the lights and droped the temps. He would never refuse a roach. Unfortunately for him I only have a single controler so if Lilly goes down, he does as well. Well unless I start bodging some things but it was about time anyway


Lilly was a bit of a wildcard but she started to go down mid september on her own, even before Luis did. If she doesn't eat, I thought I might as well do a full brumation for her and not interfere with her instincts. She is not fully asleep however, her eyes are open when I peek in and I'll take her out every other week just to be sure her first winter goes smoothly.
Don't worry, they are strictly separate:
View attachment 93101

It is good to hear that Sinatra is doing good in brumation and Zsa Zsa is still up and strong to keep you company. Did you drop the temps for him or just keep letting him do his thing?

After rereading this thread I realized I for got to tell Luis happy hatch day
HAPPY HATCH DAY LUIS!!!!!
Sinatra's heat is pretty concentrated to one side and I keep my house down at 72 to 74 degrees so his cool side is very cool. He seems happier when it's like that. When I've moved lights to warm the cool side a bit he don't use it. But when I let it get closer to room temperature he uses that space more. So when he went down I just turned to uvb off. His heat emitter is only like a 50 watt so I still run that at night to knock the chill off a bit. It hangs inside the habitat because it's so small. He still has night time temps around 70 to 72 even with the emitter. His hide is big enough to fully house him and I keep the entrance covered to block the light, but I can see he still moves around some. ..... I occasionally have a random foot or tail sticking out from under the towel that covers the entrance lol.
You mentioned you turned the basking lights off, I assume your uvb is shut down also, are you running any kind of light during the daytime? I really like your setup and can see how you can darken them pretty dark even in day light and was just curious if there is much ambient light. Sinatra's is hard to darken with the screen top and extra window I installed so I had to darken his hide in stead.

 

[NickAVD]

Oh, me too. I was so excited to read the news about Luis and Lilith that I missed the main event!
Happy hatching day, Louis! Wishing you lots of sunny days and tasty bugs !
Happy birthday, buddy!

 

[Chris.]

Thank you both, Luis is gonna get even more spoiled than he is already, don't worry

Lower temps seem to work for him as well. If it is too warm, he seems to....not really suffer but he feels unwell and stays away from it.

As for my lights, I keep the tube on for a couple of hours as it provides some rhythm, some uvb and gets up to around 75-80°F at the nearest points if they really would desire to get some warmth. It also makes for a good day/night drop but I'm totally experimenting with this right now and I might turn it of completely come december...
They are in my office, which is a fairly bright room, hence the cover. It is a really thick and heavy cloth and lets zero light through.

 

[xp29]

Thank you both, Luis is gonna get even more spoiled than he is already, don't worry

Lower temps seem to work for him as well. If it is too warm, he seems to....not really suffer but he feels unwell and stays away from it.

As for my lights, I keep the tube on for a couple of hours as it provides some rhythm, some uvb and gets up to around 75-80°F at the nearest points if they really would desire to get some warmth. It also makes for a good day/night drop but I'm totally experimenting with this right now and I might turn it of completely come december...
They are in my office, which is a fairly bright room, hence the cover. It is a really thick and heavy cloth and lets zero light through.

I kind of thought you could get the ambient light pretty low if you wanted to. I think that is a very good system.
Do you have any issues with the upper habitat getting to warm when both habitats are in full use? That has been the biggest reason I haven't tried to build stackable setups. I was concerned about concentrating heat in the space between them.

 

[NickAVD]

I kind of thought you could get the ambient light pretty low if you wanted to. I think that is a very good system.
Do you have any issues with the upper habitat getting to warm when both habitats are in full use? That has been the biggest reason I haven't tried to build stackable setups. I was concerned about concentrating heat in the space between them.

I think that the problem of the upper terrarium heating up from the heat coming from the lower terrarium was avoided thanks to the air gap between them (it looks like there is 4 inches there).
Even if such a problem appears, you can lay a heat insulator between them, which is used for the walls of houses, for example, mineral wool or something similar.
You can do the same, making a small air or heat-insulating layer.
But let's hear what Chris has to say, he has already tried all this in practice.

 

[Chris.]

The upper tank has a little weaker wattage lights but yes, it still gets slightly warmer than the lower one. Like 0.5°C or so (~1°F). But it is also warmer at night so that might just be the sensors being slightly of or it is simply because the lower one is litterally down on the floor and the upper one is at 2m (6ft) hight.
In general the wood insulates pretty good and there are foam walls on the inside. In addition I programmed an emergency shut off, if one of the cool sides gets over 85°F, that kills the basking lights and only keeps the tubes on.

Adding some insulator sounds like a valid idea, I just tried to stay away from stuff that is flammable....

 

[NickAVD]

Adding some insulator sounds like a valid idea, I just tried to stay away from stuff that is flammable....

You don't have to worry about the fire resistance of the insulators. All thermal insulation panels for house facades are made of non-combustible materials. If this were not the case, they would not have received permission to use in ventilated facades.
And mineral wool is used as a filler for double-layer chimneys, it can withstand very high temperatures, if my memory serves me right, up to 500 degrees Celsius

 

[Chris.]

You don't have to worry about the fire resistance of the insulators. All thermal insulation panels for house facades are made of non-combustible materials. If this were not the case, they would not have received permission to use in ventilated facades.

You are probably right but that gap is also where the socket of the basking bulb is located and that gets really hot. I'm just a bit paranoid about my two dragons and so far there has not been a problem. In summer I tried some fans in the gap to push the hot air out but it didn't really make a difference anyway...

 

[NickAVD]

You are probably right but that gap is also where the socket of the basking bulb is located and that gets really hot. I'm just a bit paranoid about my two dragons and so far there has not been a problem. In summer I tried some fans in the gap to push the hot air out but it didn't really make a difference anyway...

If you are very concerned about fire resistance, you can pay attention to the material Superisol. This fire-resistant board is designed for boxes separating the chimney from the wooden structures of houses. It is a good heat insulator that can withstand temperatures of 1000 degrees Celsius . I used it in my fireplace insert and stone cladding, as well as in the construction of the chimney and wooden structures of the house. But you need to think about the heat dissipation from the lamp base, otherwise its life can be significantly reduced.