Hi All,

apologies if this has been asked/answered before but my google searches have failed and maybe im searching for the wrong words/phrases but has anyone had any experience of vivarium decor lowering the ambient air temps?

recently set up a new viv for a royal that's going up in the world and as I'm planning on a nice display piece I thought I'd throw in some fake vines/leaves etc to 1) give him a little screening and 2) to look better than all brown

set up everything as per - substrate, two hides, a nice big root for rubbing/hiding/climbing etc - and got the heat going. had a nice average 88/89F hot end and 81/82 cool end at bang on 50% humidity

started setting up the fake vines/leaves all nice and pretty and closed the door back off to get the heat back up but the hot side wouldn't go any higher than about 85, and the cool side went down to 78! I thought I'd maybe knocked something out, turned something off etc but checked everything over and it's all as it was pre plants. I've even tested on 3 different temp probes.

I don't wanna just whack the habistat up to 92 in order to raise the air temps, as they are fine without the plants. In fact I've taken all that decor back out and we're now sitting back on 88HS 82CS. Has anyone else had this issue? If so there must be a solution as I've seen plenty of vivs set up with fake plants in there