I’m so excited

katieandiggy

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Well, it’s taken me about 2 months but I think I’m finally ready to get my tort.
I’m buying a hatchling Greek and my viv is just a temporary home until it’s slightly larger.

I’m currently testing my temperatures, I’ve bought an Exo Terra dimming day/night thermostat- I wished I hadn’t! It’s got some kind of light sensor on it and it’s driving me mad, it keep setting it on night mode and you cannot manually set it to day. The only way around it is to set the day and night temps the same. I won’t be needing night heat here now so I guess it doesn’t matter until the winter when I may invest in a different one.

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Everything I have done from the substrate to the water dish, is what I have learnt from this forum, thank you all very much.

Im growing some spider plants and I hope to add them soon to give some natural shade and improve the appearance.

Anything else before I buy?
 

Tom

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You want your basking bulb on a timer, not a thermostat. The "sun" shouldn't shut on and off throughout the day. Because your fixture is not moveable, you might want to use a rheostat to dial in the correct temperature, rather than have to buy and experiment with a lot of different bulbs.

What are you using for UV? I can't quite see it in the picture?

You need a much thicker layer of substrate. 3-4" is good. Your sliding door won't allow for this as the substrate will spill out every time you open the door. Over here we have this stuff called "coroplast". Is is basically like cardboard, but made of plastic instead of paper. It s cheap and easy to work with. You could make a 4-6" "litter dam" barrier right in front of the doors to hold the substrate in. If you cut a strip that is 8" longer than the front of your viv, you can fold over a 4" tab on each end and simply use aquarium silicone to glue it in place. After 48 hours of curing time, the silicone will be totally inert and non-toxic.
 
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katieandiggy

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I’ve never heard of a rheostat, but I’ll google it now... what are dimming thermostats for? cHe’s?

IMG_1525096474.875928.jpg


This is what I’m using for UVB, it’s approx 12inch from tort level
 

katieandiggy

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Thanks Tom.
I don’t think a rheostat is common in the U.K. as I’ve just googled it and looked on eBay but there isn’t much coming up.

Regarding the substrate, I did think exactly what you wrote, even the guy in the reptile shop said I could put a piece of wood there. I will defiantly look into that. Under the orchid bark is A layer of coco coir.
These lights are stressing me though lol
 

Markw84

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@katieandiggy
A rheostat is a dimmer.

Your "dimming" thermostat is technically a proportional thermostat which gradually reduces or increases power to the heat source as your enclosure gets close to / or falls below the set point temperature. All that is needed for our enclosures is a simple on/off thermostat which is normally cheaper. Either will work just fine.

The day/night feature of your thermostat has to be controlled by a light sensor. If you look where that light sensor is (probably built into the unit itself) you simply have to keep that where it "sees" enough light during the daytime to "know" its daytime. You probably have it where the light does not shine on it or perhaps it is covered behind the tank, and the sensor reads the low light as nighttime.

A thermostat (dimming or on/off) is normally used to control the heat source only. Most use a CHE (Ceramic Heat Emitter) for their heat source. So it is the CHE that is plugged into the thermostat.

The lights are on a timer. A dimmer (rheostat) can then be added - plugged into the timer, and then the basking light plugged into that so you can dim or brighten the light to get the right temperature for your enclosure. Your UVB light will also be plugged into the timer - but not into the dimmer.

The UVB bulb you have is a good UVB bulb.

Here is a simple and inexpensive rheostat (dimmer):

rheostat.jpg
 

katieandiggy

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Mark- I get it now. It’s just like a dimmer on a normal household bulb.

Well on a positive note I’ve been running the dimmer for the last 5 hours and it’s held steady at 34.9c I’ve programmed it to 35c I’ve noticed that it stays at that temp, the bulb doesn’t dim or go on and off. The only time it does is when I open the viv and the temp drops, it then fires up to get back to the set temp and once it gets there it seems to settle again.
 
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