Having trouble getting my temps up...

[bubbagumper6]

Hello all,
My beardie (Apollo) is about 7 months old now, and I've got him in the custom enclosure I built (around 56 gallons). I'm having trouble getting his basking spot up to the correct temperature. Right now I have a small fixture mounted inside the tank with a 30w Halogen flood light (the small ones) which is about 5" away from his spot and a regular 100w incandescent bulb which is in a normal dome fixture (the kind pet stores sell for reptiles) and that one is about 12" away from his basking spot. I just bought the standard 12$ Acu-rite thermometer with the probe, and it says the temperature at his basking spot is only 100*...I've tried many different combinations of lights and just can't seem to get it right. I think the next thing I'm going to try is bumping the flood light up to a 45w, but I have to be careful with those because they generate a lot more heat than regular light bulbs, I had a 90w that almost melted some plastic...

but yeah, any suggestions would be helpful

 

[gtfsolutions]

I just posted this in another topic, but in case you don't see it...

I just purchased a phillips heat bulb after going through many of the pains you are facing now.... I went with the 175W and it's the perfect temps in the viv now.

http://www.bulbs.com/eSpec.aspx?ID=12891&Ref=Heat+Lamps&RefId=164&Ref2=Specialty+Bulbs

 

[bubbagumper6]

See I had a large halogen light like that, and it got WAY too hot...it was shining on his hide and when I touched the hide it almost burned me...

 

[gtfsolutions]

The thing is they come in a range of sizes - I started at 250W and worked my way down. The 175W works perfect for me... you may find something else works better for you.

 

[bubbagumper6]

Yeah the one I had was a 90w and it got WAY too hot...right now the halogen I have is a tiny one and only 30w, I know they make a 45w in the same size so i may pick one of those up and see how that does

 

[blackbearded]

I had the same issue with the 90w halogen. I had to buy a dimmer but when i try to dim it, it would lower the temp but it wasnt bright enough. so I ended up buying a phillips duramax spot 45w the small one and the temp stay around 108 deg. also it really depends where u keep the cage and the room tmps. my room temps stay above 75-80 deg I had a mga ray for a while but i had to buy a exhaust fan to suck out th excess heat.
there alot to factor in you got to look at your living environment surrounding th cage. what are your dimension? also take your digi temp prob and put it outsid your cage away from any heat source but near the vicinity of th cage to get a room temp if is like mine 75- 80 then get a phillips duramax spot 45w the small one at home depot it was 8.99 for a three pack i put two in my cage im planning dividing the cage to accomodate two beardies. hope i help.

 

[bubbagumper6]

No, my room temp is closer to 66 degrees

Heating bill was like 170$ last month...we had to turn the heat down and it's like 20 degrees outside!


Anyway, yeah I have my temps good now, but like you said, the big Halogen doesn't provide much light once it's dimmed, any suggestions on how to bring the light output up? Perhaps a fluorescent light or something?

 

[blackbearded]

See that was my problem it was so dim the dragon was still dark in color so I had to buy the smaller halogen bulb and now the temp is 99 deg constant. the light fixture I have you could raise and lower the post I took some pics to show you.

 

[bubbagumper6]

Yeah the one I have now is 75w I think...45w wasn't enough so maybe I'll pick up the 55w and see how that does? It just sucks because these bulbs are expensive as hell and the people at home depot are going to catch on if I keep returning them, lol.

 

[gtfsolutions]

How expensive are they? The one I bought was $9.75 CDN.

 

[bubbagumper6]

Yeah they're each about $10 but over the last week I think I've probably bought at least 10 of them, lol. If I hadn't been returning them that would be $100 down the drain!

 

[foto69man]

You can also stay with the 175 watt bulb, and then buy a garden hangar(basically a decorative arm that screws into the wall and sticks out 6-12") then get the fancy chain and hang the light from that. Then you can move the light up or down till you find the optimal distance. it's a combo of the wattage and distance to get the best temps. Plus, excess heat can spill into the room and help you out too.. :wink: