ShellingtonTheFirst
Active Member
Shelly my Greek tortoise is in a 6ftx4ft viv with a 100w (just raised it up and switched it out from a 75w solely to up ambient temperature on that side) floodlight that I keep at 35c at ground level. I figure his shell is a few inches higher than that so he’s getting adequate basking temperatures at shell height as long as the slate beneath the light is 35c/ish. In the middle of the viv I have a 150w CHE on a thermostat. My problem is that it seems no matter the wattage of light I go for, his ‘warm side’ doesn’t really get any warmer than what I set his thermostat to (26c with the probe at shell height on the cool side) even with the basking bulb on his warm side. The area around the basking bulb about a foot in either direction gets to about 29c, but then as you near the corners it drops to 26c. The middle of his enclosure is warmer, around 30c, probably because of the culmination of heat from the bulb and CHE gathering around it. So he doesn’t have a ‘warm side’ per se, just a basking bulb, the middle being his ‘warm side’, and then his cool side and the corners being considerably cooler. Is that okay? Should I move his CHE to the warm side?