How to Heat Gecko Habitats

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Johan Svahnström on behalf of Expert Village. It's really important to find one or two good heat sources for your leopard gecko. Now, don't keep him outside in the warm climate. It might get too humid, insects might come in there, and other things that you don't want. Birds might even get to him. One of the best things that I've found is one of these regular cheap little heat pads for humans that you can buy anywhere. They actually work really well; a lot better, I think, than the commercial ones that you can buy from the pet stores. They tend to wear out real fast, they tend to get hot spots in the middle, especially the hot rocks that you can buy, and they can burn your geckos. What you do is that you take a towel to put underneath the tank, more to protect your table than anything else, unless something would happen. You put a towel underneath the tank, and you put your heat pad underneath there on top of the towel. And it's important just to keep it halfway over. Don't have the whole tank covered with a head pad. The lizard must get a chance to move away from it if he gets too hot. Now, once you get it underneath there, you always put your pad on the low, or it'll get too hot. It'll be plenty warm if you keep it on low. Another thing is, if you are away most of the day, please use a timer or something like that, because you don't want to have this on all day. It gets too hot. I usually keep it on for two or three hours, then I shut it off for two or three hours, then on two or three hours. It could get too hot. Another thing is that's the importance of having it only halfway. If it does get too hot, the geckos will move away from that area. That is really nice to have because they get belly warmth, they can digest their food really well if they get heat from the bottom. Keep your lizards inside, which I recommend that you would do. You could also, you would need also to put something on top, that gives them a little bit of sunlight, although it's not natural sunlight. Just use one of these spot lights, this is one way of using it, just one of these regular spotlights. Buy a light, a special light you can get at the pet store or your reptile supply house, with some type of a JVB or JV light in them. Stick it on top of your screen tank. There you go again. The screen tank is great for that. You don't want glass on there. It gets too hot and too crazy. Turn it on. Same thing here. I don't like to keep this on all day, because you'll want to try prevent it from being too hot. Okay, keep it on for a few hours at a time, three or four hours at a time. That's plenty. You can also buy one of these vitalights, they call them, or the tubes that you can use. They're a little difficult to deal with because a lot of times they don't come with the console, so you have to build something on your own. I prefer these. They look good, they keep one spot sunny and kind of warm, while the other side of the tank's still gets kind of shady and kind of cool if the lizard wants to move away. I do have this right on top of the water. You don't want that. You want to keep it more in the middle, because if you keep it on top of the water, the water's going to rise, and it's going to get moist in the tank, and the water's going to be gone fairly fast."