Leopard gecko heating

The figures, before any product

Read the warm row carefully, because it contains two numbers and most setups only chase one. There is a warm surface figure and a warm hide figure, and the hide is the one the animal spends the day pressed against. A setup that hits the surface temperature in the open but leaves the warm hide cold has not met the requirement.

The cool side matters as much as the warm one. 70-77 F (21-25 C) is not a suggestion - it is the other half of a gradient, and a gecko with nowhere cool to go cannot thermoregulate at all. If raising the warm end drags the cool end out of range, the enclosure is too small rather than the heater too weak. Leopard gecko tank size has the footprint figures.

Mat or lamp? What each one actually does

This is the question the search term is really asking, and the honest answer is that both work and they work differently.

The direction of travel in current husbandry is toward overhead radiant heat, because it reproduces how the animal is warmed in the wild and delivers the Infrared-A band a mat cannot. That is a real argument and it is not a reason to rip out a working mat. If you have a thermostatically controlled mat holding the warm hide floor at its figure, you have met the requirement.

If you are buying a mat

The checklist is short - it should cover roughly a third of the floor so a gradient survives, it must be paired with a thermostat rated for its wattage, and the probe goes between the mat and the glass rather than loose in the air. We have since scored four mats against those thresholds in best heat mat for a leopard gecko, which includes the sizing arithmetic for a 36 x 18 in floor and the published temperature each manufacturer states.

What we would build today is the overhead route plus the instruments, which is the setup below.

Where the probe goes, and why it decides everything

A thermostat does not control the enclosure. It controls the one point its probe is touching, and everything else in the enclosure is a consequence. Put the probe in the wrong place and the controller will faithfully hold the wrong thing at the right number.

With a mat: between the mat and the underside of the enclosure floor, directly over the mat, taped down. Not inside the enclosure, not in the air, not at the cool end.

With an overhead lamp: at the warm surface itself, where the gecko will lie, so the controller is dimming to hold that surface rather than the air above it.

Then verify with a second instrument, because a thermostat reports what its probe sees and nothing else. An infrared gun pointed at the warm hide floor and then at the cool end takes about ten seconds and is the only way to know a gradient exists. How to measure basking temperature is the method, and how thermostats work covers why the controller type has to match the heat source.

Night heat: usually none

The published night figure for this species is generous - Tolerates a drop to 60 F (16 C) - and a drop after dark is part of the husbandry rather than a problem to engineer away. Measure your room overnight before buying anything, because in most heated homes the answer is that no night heat is needed at all.

If the room does fall below the range, the source must be lightless: a ceramic emitter or a thermostatically controlled mat, never a colored bulb, because a lit enclosure at night breaks the photoperiod. Night lighting mistakes covers why red and blue lamps fail at the one job they are sold for, and how to keep a reptile enclosure warm covers cold rooms, winter and power cuts across all four species.

Heating is not lighting, and this species needs both decided separately

A heat source is not a UVB source. A leopard gecko sits in zone 1 with a published target of UVI 0.5-1.5 at the basking spot per the Ferguson zone guidance, which comes from a separate low-output linear tube - a figure low enough that the usual mistake is buying a lamp that is far too strong. Our do leopard geckos need UVB page answers whether to run it, and best UVB for leopard geckos covers the lamp, including the lower ceiling for reduced-pigment morphs.

Heat also interacts with humidity in a way that catches people out. Overhead heat dries an enclosure, and this species wants a dry enclosure with one humid hide rather than humid air - which is the arrangement that fixes most shedding complaints. Leopard gecko temperature and humidity covers that split in full.

The build, in order

Enclosure first, sized so a gradient fits. Heat source at one end only - never in the middle, because a warm middle leaves two cool ends and no usable cool retreat. Thermostat with the probe at the controlled point. Two hides minimum, one over the warm zone and one at the cool end, identical in shape so the gecko is choosing temperature rather than shelter quality, plus the humid hide. Then measure for three days before you trust it. The leopard gecko setup checklist is the full component list, and leopard gecko setup cost puts the line items in priority order.

For how the same decision plays out in the other species we cover: ball python heating works from a warm-hide figure rather than a surface, bearded dragon basking setup is a genuine basking build at a much higher surface temperature, and do crested geckos need a heat lamp is the species where the answer is usually no.