Southern Angle Headed Heat - Melbourne?

[Seven_neves]

Hi All,

The cold is starting to move into Melbourne and in the last week my little Angle Headed's appetite has dropped significantly - from 10-12 medium crickets to 2-3 daily.

He's not in a main living area of the house, so doesn't get any external heat, i'd say the room drops to 15 degrees overnight

Should I start throwing some heat in?

TIA
[doublepost=1525771660,1525771540][/doublepost]I should add that he was a December 2017 hatchling.

 

[Sdaji]

I'd get a thermometer immediately. As a reptile keeper, temperature watching is your religion. It is by far the single most important aspect of keeping reptiles. If you're not quite sure what the temperature was before or is now, that's step #1. Never keep reptiles without a thermometer. If it actually is 15 at the coldest part of the night it may or may not be a problem, depending on how long it stays around that level and how warm it gets for how long during the day. Touching 15 degrees is not an issue at all. Spending 20 hours per day between 15-20 degrees and 4 hours a bit above that is (though these things are cold hardy and will tolerate it more than most other agamids). 'Possibly around 15 at night' isn't at all enough information to comment on. The warm part of the day is the most important time to get the temperature right as long as the night time temperatures aren't completely ridiculous; the day time is when they're doing the critical metabolising etc. Once the temperature is low enough to have them essentially not doing anything, they're more or less just not doing anything (yes, I'm oversimplifying). This is especially try for diurnal reptiles.

 

[Seven_neves]

I'd get a thermometer immediately. As a reptile keeper, temperature watching is your religion. It is by far the single most important aspect of keeping reptiles. If you're not quite sure what the temperature was before or is now, that's step #1. Never keep reptiles without a thermometer. If it actually is 15 at the coldest part of the night it may or may not be a problem, depending on how long it stays around that level and how warm it gets for how long during the day. Touching 15 degrees is not an issue at all. Spending 20 hours per day between 15-20 degrees and 4 hours a bit above that is (though these things are cold hardy and will tolerate it more than most other agamids). 'Possibly around 15 at night' isn't at all enough information to comment on. The warm part of the day is the most important time to get the temperature right as long as the night time temperatures aren't completely ridiculous; the day time is when they're doing the critical metabolising etc. Once the temperature is low enough to have them essentially not doing anything, they're more or less just not doing anything (yes, I'm oversimplifying). This is especially try for diurnal reptiles.

Thanks for your input Sdaji,

I pulled out my trusty BBQ Thermo, which is the only thing I have onsite that supports logging. Didn't get above 20 all day in the enclosure (log screenshot attached). Picked up a Thermostat and ceramic lamp on the way home this arvo so will start throwing some heat into the enclosure from tonight.

I was thinking 25 degC through winter through daylight hours and switch off at night when the UV goes off?

 

[Sdaji]

Yeah, constantly being below 20C is definitely colder than ideal, even for these guys. Hopefully the supplemental heat will do them some good

I'd be slightly dubious about the accuracy of a BBQ thermometer (I didn't actually know there were BBQs with dataloggers, it's an amazing world! Very resourceful of you too! Haha!). You could manually calibrate it with another thermometer, which would make it a handle datalogger, or just buy a cheap digital thermometer or two. I used to pay a fortune for them but these days they're dirt cheap on eBay etc.