Friendly Reminder to Check Your Temps - Seasonal changes can impact cage temps

We all should be checking our cage temps regularly, and with an IR Temp Gun. However, seasonal changes mean room temp changes which can mean temp changes in the tanks.

Over the past few days my basement (where my reptile area is - it's a finished basement) has settled into it's 68F winter temp. It had been 70-74F in there over the summer and early fall.

I checked all my tanks and out of 12, 5 thermostats had to be adjusted (not much, but a little). To be clear, my tanks are in towers, so they feed off each other in terms of heat. I imagine if they were isolated tanks, they adjustments might have been more dramatic and frequent.

You might ask why would this happen if I am using a thermostat?

If it's a thermostat on a UTH or heat tape, it probably doesn't have to be adjusted much as the probe should be placed touching the heat tape or in between the UTH and bottom of your tank. However, if using CHE's, lights, and RHP's, the thermostat reads the air temp (with the probe placed between the ground and the heat source) and if the air temp changes enough, it can throw off the the amount of heat a heating element is giving off and for how long.

Usually these changes are not dramatic enough to overheat an animal but it all depends on setup. Of course, that's the main concern. Overheating. Under-heating is not ideal but not deadly unless the animal was just fed.

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy fall and holiday season. Keep yourself and your animals safe.

My house dries out markedly with the heat running so I find that I have to swap out small water bowls for larger ones, or add a second bowl, to maintain humidity in the larger enclosures.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

My house dries out markedly with the heat running so I find that I have to swap out small water bowls for larger ones, or add a second bowl, to maintain humidity in the larger enclosures.

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Same. My snake room is currently at 33%. This time of year I either spray the cages more regularly or switch to a different substrate like coconut husk chips.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by bcr229

My house dries out markedly with the heat running so I find that I have to swap out small water bowls for larger ones, or add a second bowl, to maintain humidity in the larger enclosures.

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Good point. I should have mentioned humidity changes as well!

Great reminder! I've definitely had to do some tweaking with temperatures and humidity in the past few weeks.

Thanks for the reminder! I’ve got new cages coming this weekend so it’s a good opportunity for me to take a look at all temps and get everyone dialed in for the winter.

I definitely agree with checking temps regularly. I check mine every 1-2 days. I have 6 RHPs/ 4 UTHs/ 1 CHE for my (11) enclosures. I’ve had to adjust the CHE a tick to warm it up a bit but the others we’re still spot on. I’m actually starting to dial my hot spots back a tad for the winter. Instead of a 86-90F hot spot, I’m giving them a hot spot of 82-84 during the day.