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

[dakski]

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.