Temp gun-2 questions

Couple questions about temperature guns:

1. Does anybody have a recommendation on an actual product/model? I don't think the Home Depots near me actually stock them so I'll likely have to buy online.

2. I realize this isn't directly related to BP husbandry but I keep a lot of aquatic pets so, does anybody know if they also work for telling the temperature of water? I figure this purchase could save me a lot of hassle.

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by dkspftw

Couple questions about temperature guns:

1. Does anybody have a recommendation on an actual product/model? I don't think the Home Depots near me actually stock them so I'll likely have to buy online.

2. I realize this isn't directly related to BP husbandry but I keep a lot of aquatic pets so, does anybody know if they also work for telling the temperature of water? I figure this purchase could save me a lot of hassle.

Thanks!

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I have two temp guns. One is a cheapo zoomed reptitemp, which has actually been pretty accurate for me. I also have an IR gun from home depot, I'll have to check on the name. It was around 20 bucks though. I have a ton of aquatics as well, the issue is that the temp guns don't really read reflective surfaces all too well. That said, it can be done :) If you have any opaque objects, you can use that to get a rough reading. I'm not too OCD about my temps though, so I'm okay with a small swing.

I personally own a Snap-On temp gun, expensive but I needed it for my job. It works great but again it's not the cheapest one out there.

As far as water temps, the don't read water temps. They are meant to read surface temps. You may get a reading from the temp gun but it will not be accurate or it will just be reading the closest solid surface.

I ordered a temp gun off of Amazon for a pretty good price. If you want the temperature of the water I would use a digital thermometer with a probe, you can find those at your local petsmart/petco.


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Pull something out of the water and use the gun on it. It should be the same temp as the water.

Temp guns are awesome for quick scanning around and looking for hot or cold spots, but not very accurate so don't take them as being dead on. It's not something that you're going to really get much of a better one usually by just spending a few more dollars on. Most any of them from pro exotics, reptile basics or off the shelf at home depot will do you just fine. They pretty much all have an accuracy rating of +/-2% or 2 degrees F whichever is greater. A few may be slightly better shaving off up to another .5 off of those numbers, but you're probably not going to find anything significantly better without jumping up into the 600-700$ range or more for one.


fyi, Hospital grade temp guns are more accurate only when used on people, if they're being used on anything else they have a different accuracy rating and many have a switch on them to change it from people to other surfaces. Many of these are also only point and shoot, calculating a reading at a certain spot as opposed to being able to hold the trigger and being able to scan across a surface.

I bought my temp gun at an auto parts store and its actually pretty awesome. You can continuously scan around a tub or other enclosure and it records and displays the highest temp while displaying the current temp of what you are scanning... if that makes sense? I think it was about $15 dollars at Autozone and I bought it for something else but ended up using it exclusively for my bps. Just keep in mind that it only tells you temps of a surface which is helpful for checking hot spot temps. I don't think you can get an accurate temp of water with a surface temp gun. Look at auto parts stores or at target or walmart in their auto parts departments for one. Hope that helps.