General Care Discussion :: Hello im new here need some heater info.

[scmom0305]

Ok I've been searching for an answer for over an hour now (tired of looking, lol) so I'm just going to ask now. Is it safe for my yearling RES, he's about an inch big, to sit on top of his water heater or can that burn him? It's a Visi-Therm Stealth 50watt. Should I stand it upright so he'll stop trying to sit on it? He has many other places to sit in his tank and sitting on the heater do not make any of him sit out of water. I assume he does it cause it's warm but most of his water is warm too.

[SpotsMama]

Here's a post where someone else was wondering about it with some suggestions:

http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewt ... light=burn

Read down towards the bottom of the thread. Suggestions are to angle the heater so it's not as easy to rest on, put it in a pvc pipe, or get a "heater cover" for it. The heater in this case was, I believe, glass, unlike yours which is, I believe, black plastic? Have you felt the heater - is it hot enough to your touch that you think it could burn?

I haven't seen any instances on here where a turtle has been burned by a heater. I've seen a couple of instances where glass heaters have shattered, but that's all. I've got the same brand heater as yours and don't worry about it, thinking that if it got uncomfortable for Spot he'd leave it alone.

You need to be sure the heated part is always submerged. If some of it is out of the water it will get really hot.

[scmom0305]

It the black plastic. I've put my finger on it and I think it would burn me if I kept it there but not on initial contact. It is currently compleatly submurged. And he dosn't sit on it forever just a lot. I don't yet have an actual heat lamp for him, I'm just using a house hold light bulb, so maybe he's just trying to get a little warmer.

[SpotsMama]

Actually, a regular household light bulb is perfectly adequate for heat in a small aquarium. How large is your setup? Have you measured the temperature on the basking spot? If it's too low you may need to move the bulb a little closer. The only caution would be not to move it so close that water could splash up on it and cause it to explode. About 12" is as close as I'd want to put an incandescent household bulb.

The only way to know what is the temperature on the basking spot is to measure it with a thermometer. We can't tell just by feel how warm it is. You want the temp on the basking area to be around 88 or 90 degrees.

How warm is the water temperature? It should be at least 10 degrees cooler than the basking temperature. When turtles want to get warmer they should feel motivated to get up on the basking platform.

Also, I assume you've got a second light bulb, a flourescent, over the basking area to provide UVA and UVB.