Red eyed crocodile skink question

[Transylvania]

I'm about to get a male/female pair of tribbies, and I just have a quick question. I've been googling their care for a while but there seem to be mixed opinions about heating. So can any tribbie owners clarify whether they need a heat pad or not? I appreciate any advice.

 

[Lor&Chris]

Hmm I'm not entirely sure. You could probably either do a lamp or a heat pad, I wouldn't think it would need both. I had a water dragon and the substrate was sand and we had a heat pad under it and no lamp. We also had a heated rock at the other end of the tank. He'd lay on the rock and on the warm sand. I prefer heat pads/heat rocks to lamps myself. Sorry I can't be more helpful. Good luck!

Lor

 

[Transylvania]

I'd rather not use a heat lamp, and definitely wouldn't use a heat rock, as they have the possibility to severely burn a reptile's belly. Thanks though!

 

[Lor&Chris]

I wondered about it burning them too when I got it, so I kinda tested it out, plugged it in and felt how warm it got. He seemed to be fine with it, but I suppose another species could have issues if it's skin is thinner or more sensitive, or just a smaller lizard in general.

 

[Transylvania]

Yeah, perhaps. Tribbies are relatively small skinks, so I won't take a chance.

 

[Lolita]

I wondered about it burning them too when I got it, so I kinda tested it out, plugged it in and felt how warm it got. He seemed to be fine with it, but I suppose another species could have issues if it's skin is thinner or more sensitive, or just a smaller lizard in general.

well it's actually that heat rocks are really prone to malfunction and can heat really high i have a laser thermometer and i decided to test the theory on them so i plugged 4 of them in (that i had lying around the house varying brands and sizes) i kept them plugged in a grand total of 14 days checking on them 3x a day with the thermometer they kept in the normal ranges for the first week by the second week most of them got up to 190's one even hit 240 and set on fire (good thing the were just kept in empty tanks) it was enough to make me decide to never use one of them again.

 

[Lor&Chris]

Holy that's crazy! Good thing the tank was empty! I guess I was lucky when I used one, it never had any problems. But technology in general isn't reliable.

 

[Jmugleston]

If you need to increase the temperature in their enclosure, a heat pad or heat cable would work. They are a bit more shy than many other common pet lizards so a basking spot would most likely not be used. The head pad along with multiple hide spots on both the warm and cool end of the cage will allow the animals to select their preferred temperature. You will want to get a rheostat or thermostat to control the output though. Croc skinks don't need as hot a spot as some other lizards.

Heat rocks are crap. I'm surprised they're still sold to be honest. They are known to be problematic especially in high humidity enclosures.