What temperature should a reptile enclosure be?

Every published figure, in one table

Read along a row rather than picking one number out of it. Each species needs both ends at once, which is why the enclosure has to be long enough for the two figures to coexist - a short enclosure heated to a basking target has no cool end, and an animal with nowhere cool to go cannot thermoregulate at all.

Surface temperature and air temperature are different measurements

This is the distinction that makes most of the difference in practice. A bearded dragon basking figure of 108-113 F (42-45 C) surface temperature describes the surface the animal lies on - the rock, the slate, the platform - because that is where the heat enters the animal. An air thermometer hanging at mid-height in the same enclosure may read twenty degrees lower and be perfectly correct about the air.

So the tool follows the figure. Surface temperatures are read with an infrared temperature gun pointed at the spot. Air temperature and humidity are read with a probe placed where the animal actually spends time. Using one for the other is the most common reason a setup is wrong while all the equipment appears to be working. How to measure basking temperature is the method in full.

Where the probe goes

Two probes, two different jobs, and neither goes where it is convenient.

The thermostat probe goes at the point you are controlling - normally the basking surface for an overhead lamp, or against the glass above a heat mat. It is not a monitoring device; it is the sensor the controller is steering by, so putting it somewhere cooler than the real hot spot makes the thermostat drive the lamp harder and overheat the animal.

The monitoring probe goes at the cool end, at animal height, to confirm that the cool figure in the table is actually being met. A setup where only the warm end is measured is a setup where you do not know whether a gradient exists.

Night, which is a figure and not an afterthought

Every species in the table has a published night range, and in three of the four cases the correct night action is to turn everything off. A bearded dragon tolerates 55-75 F (12-24 C); the leopard gecko figure is stated as Tolerates a drop to 60 F (16 C). Those drops are not a risk to manage, they are part of the husbandry.

Night heat is only needed when the room itself falls below the species range, and when it is needed it must be lightless - a ceramic emitter or a radiant panel on a thermostat, never a colored bulb. Night lighting mistakes covers why red and blue bulbs fail at the one job they are sold for, and how to keep a reptile enclosure warm covers cold rooms, winter and power cuts.

You cannot hold a figure without a thermostat

A heat source without a controller produces an output, not a temperature. Its effect on the enclosure moves with the room, so the same lamp that holds a basking surface correctly in April overshoots in July and undershoots in January. Every figure in the table above assumes something is holding it.

Match the controller to the heat source: a dimming or pulse thermostat for a filament or halogen lamp, an on/off controller for a lightless mat or emitter where cycling does not matter visibly. How thermostats work explains the difference, and best reptile thermostats is the roundup.

If you cannot reach the figures

Three causes, in order of likelihood. The enclosure is too short for a gradient, so the two ends fight each other - see the enclosure size chart. The lamp wattage is wrong for the mount height, which is a measurement problem rather than a shopping problem - what wattage heat bulb for a reptile works it through. The room is the limit, because an enclosure cannot hold a cool end below its own room temperature, and in a hot room that is the figure that fails first.

Species-specific detail lives on the species pages: bearded dragon, leopard gecko, ball python and crested gecko.