Monitor Heating

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Foozil

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G'day,

This week I'm getting my first monitor, a stripe tailed pygmy monitor (Varanus caudolineatus) and I'm wondering what the best kinds of heat lamps and thermostats are. The basking spot has to be around 50˚c.

Thanks,
Izak
 
Don’t have any experience but from what I have read is get a piece of slate and put it under a 50 - 100 w bulb some say don’t need a thermostat, some do. If you where to get a thermostat get a dimmer instead of an on/ off. A good brand or the brand I use is the micro climate thermostats.
 
As said above, nice hot basking spot. 45-60 degrees or so. A tile, piece of slate or bluestone paver will work really well, distance from bulb will vary with the wattage. Use trial and error with a thermometer (infrared ones are really useful for this) to get the distance right. Use a 24hr timer for this, not a thermostat.

If you opt for background heat at night then use a thermostat (pulse proportionate preferred over switching thermostat) with the heat source (ceramic heat emitter would probably work best). I don’t have background heat on my monitors because the bluestone basking sites make wonderful heat sinks and radiate it back out when the lights are off, but it will depend on how well or badly your enclosure holds heat.

You want the cool end of your enclosure around the high 20s.

Sticks and branches to taste for climbing and a layer of sand for substrate, plus a couple of hides in different areas. Small bird boxes screwed up high on a wall will do pretty well. Add some dead gum leaves over the top of the substrate if you like, it’ll look nice and your little fellow will forage through them.

I recommend quickly going and buying a book called “A guide to Australian monitors in captivity” by Danny Brown. Has loads of husbandry dos and donts, dietary information and other specifics you will need to know.
 
The ones from Canberra are quite cheap for specimens of this species.
As for heating, I second what Smittiferous has said. Depending on where you live, you might need to provide some night time heat, mainly in winter.
 
I live in Wollongong, would that require night time heating? The garage I keep everything in retains heat quite well.
 
Not sure about in the garage (i'll check tonight), but the last couple of nights outside it went down to around 17-22˚
 
I wouldn't worry about night time heat for the warmer months then. If your winter night time temps get down to low single digits, I would provide it then.
 
The bulb with the slate is a good idea - you'll also want a non-light emitting heat bulb for the colder months. Smaller monitors do seem to prefer belly heat at night though, since they lie on sun warmed rocks, so maybe a good heat mat under slate/tile/rock?
 
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