So I've had my baby for about two weeks now, he is doing very well for me, but I just have some concerns about him and not having exactly normal behaviors from what I read. He is about 7 inches so I'm guessing he is about 2 months old.
He eats his crickets vary well, and he even likes his veggies, which as far as I know is also weird. He likes to soak in his water bowl, he spends more time on his cool side than his warm side, and I make sure it stays between 100-110 for him and he 'pants' a lot even though he isn't even hot, he was doing it today at 100 degrees.
I did all my research before bringing him home and he isn't doing the things that I read to be normal and I'm just a little worried and I want to make sure everything is okay, I'm sure I'm just being a worry-wart, but I would like to be 100% positive that everything is okay.
Thank you in advance.
If you can review your tank setup with us such as the type & brand of UVB lighting, the type of basking light as well as the size of the tank, too. What do you use to measure the temperatures in the tank?
If he is spending more time on the cool side, it sounds like it may be too hot on the warmer end of the tank.
I have the zoomed day/night desert lighting kit but I don't use the red night light, I put the 10.0 desert uvb bulb in its place, (reptisun of course) and that wasn't creating enough heat so I added either a 60-100 watt CHE 8 1/2 in dome (sister bought it a while ago and can't remember exactly what watt). He is in a 20 gal tank, and I have a zoomed reptile terrarium digital thermometer for the cool side and an AcuRite digital humidity and temperature monitor that I bought from walmart.
Here are some photos of the set up.
It looks like you are using a compact/coil light for the Reptisun 10 UVB light? If so, I would highly recommend changing that out for a long, tube Reptisun 10 tube bulb. It has so much better UVB emissions than the compact/coil light does.
How is he doing today did he eat a lot today?
The 20 gallons tend to be ha rd to maintain the proper gradients & can get too hot for them. Are they basking temperatures good?
Yeah, I was planning on buying the hood lamp when I get my student loan money. He actually eats really well for me. He eats at least 20 crickets a session and then he loves his veggies too, especially the collard greens. I have my thermometers on both sides and the cool side around 85 and the hot side stays around 100-110 during the day only of course.