Habitat - Indoor :: Baby it's cold....inside?!

[marisa]

Starchick, for a good amount of time, your apt is even colder than my basement, where I have two painteds in a stock tank. The ambient air temp varies somewhat, depending on the weather outside, and can range from just about 60F to 64F (during the recent thaw we had). I try to keep the ambient air temp up in the tank---it is possible for them to get ill from the contrast water and air temp.

I keep about half of the tank covered with a piece of Lexan during the day, the other half, where their basking area is, has a 160-watt MVB over it. The water temp is set at 72F. At night, after the light goes off, I cover just about the whole tank (and piece of Lexan) with a big piece of cardboard to trap in the warmth. One of the painteds likes to sleep on the basking area and can usually be found there in the morning. So far this has been working well. If I place my hand under the cardboard during the night, the warmth is really noticeable.

[dawn9800]

this post is really helpful to me our freaking heat is broken so we have ohh nothing at night it was 20 some odd degrees last night!

[Starchick]

My parents are going to give me their space heater, it's really big and has a programmable thermostat so hopefully that'll take care of it. I had the landlord open my heater vent all the way, and I put insulating film over the windows, which didn't have that much effect. But I did determine that it's about 10 degrees warmer on the inside wall of the room than on the wall that faces the yard, so I'm putting both turtles against that.

[marisa]

dawn9800, cover most of the tank at night---it will trap the warmth from the water (your tank does have a water heater, right?) and keep your turtle warmer.

[Starchick]

Just to let you guys know, I think I'm okay now. My parents gave me their space heater, which is really nice. It's not exactly toasty in here or anything, but I can at least get to sleep at night. I moved both turtles to the inside wall, and between that and the heater they're back to healthy temps. (I also discovered that my storm windows were wide open, so I closed those. Seriously, they're all concerned about running up the electric bill, wouldn't you think that would be something they'd take care of?) Anyway, thanks for the advice!

dawn9800, good luck getting your heat fixed asap! I feel for you!

[Cramer]

I stayed a night at a friends apartment in uptown Manhatten and her buildings owners were those kind of old people that are always cold, so the entire building was roasting.
Early December, snowing, Christmas lights in the park, freezing outside and I chose to sleep next to an open window with snow falling on me. They keep their windows open from Nov-April.