Winter Night Heating

[LittleRepieye]

Well I've had my bearded dragon Draco sense April and haven't experienced winter months with him yet. Ive been a little worried about him becoming to cold a few months more down the line. It has been getting around 30's here at night and his warm side of the tank I have never seen drop below 70. The lowest I've seen the cold side so far is 67.
I currently use a under tank heater, after a bad experience with a ceramic heat emitter. It's one of those zoo med, under tank sticky pads. I have it under the glass under a reptile carpet, then some shelf liner on top of that, then tiles to way it down so he can't get under it, then some basking rocks from petsmart to way it down more( Wanted him to stay warm but not get burnt) . I have to keep a screen on top, I live in a basement in NH(Very cold Winters) and sometimes we get some nasty wolf spiders I do not want getting to him, he is at least 3-4 feet up off the ground, but I'm not sure what those things can climb. Plus we have a cat upstairs, she is not supposed to come downstairs because of my allergies, but she sneaks down when I'm not home occasionally. Because of the screen top, I found out it would not be a good idea to have a heat emitter, it warped my old 55 gal screen and was burning hot, I got so nervous it was melting the screen and getting on Draco, I threw it on the floor and ended up burning a hole right though a blanket(was only a 60 watt too! was so scared he got hurt wasn't thinking about the blanket at the time ) So I'm kinda to scared it would hurt him to use that, but I'm wondering if there is anything else to use that would be safer? I know they don't like the red or blue lights for night sleep, but is there a way to hide the light from them? or should I get another under tank heater but a lower wattage? I just don't want him to be cold or to be burnt I currently have a 75g tank with a 60g tank heater. I keep aluminum foil over the cold side at night to keep some heat inside. I also keep a space heater on close to his tank till I go to sleep.

 

[ziggy23]

The problem is with the UTH is they are not really regulated. UTH and heat rocks have been known to short out and burn animals.

I don't even use any special night heat. As soon as the possibility of cold temps at night, I turned on the thermostat on my furnace. You don't have to have it high for it to be effective for them. You could put it on like 70 and be just fine.

 

[BlueDevil]

I live in Saskatchewan and winters can get quite cold here. I'm using a UTH (heat tape that runs about 12" on the basking side of the terrarium) with linoleum on top of the tape as well as slate tiling on top of that so my dragon will not have any direct contact with the heat tape. The heat tape is controlled by a HerpStat Pro thermostat which is configured to kick in when the temps get below 65 degrees at night and the max temp is set to 80 degrees. The tiling on this side slightly warmer than the coolest side of my terrarium by about 5 degrees? If you go with a UTH make sure its controlled by a good thermostat like a HerpStat as well have a barrier between the the heating device and your dragon. The only reason why I went with the HerpStat Pro is that it gives me the ability to have a simulated sunrise and sunset. For more info on the HerpStat they can be viewed on their website. http://www.spyderrobotics.com/ hope that helps!

 

[LittleRepieye]

Could you hook up any undertank heating pad to them, or do you need a certain one? This would defiantly help me sleep better knowing it wouldn't burn him in the colder months ahead. I have mine under a reptile carpet, then a layer of shelf liner, then a layer of tiles and rocks right now so hes not directly on top.

 

[BlueDevil]

Could you hook up any undertank heating pad to them, or do you need a certain one? This would defiantly help me sleep better knowing it wouldn't burn him in the colder months ahead. I have mine under a reptile carpet, then a layer of shelf liner, then a layer of tiles and rocks right now so hes not directly on top.

Should work with any heating pad, I use a HerpStat with a human heating pad to heat my dubia roach bin. Of course if your heating pad has a ground plug (3 prongs) you'd obviously would want to buy the thermostat that would accomodate grounded plugs which is a couple bucks more. But I think the vast majority are 2 prong plugs.