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Shed & Bask

Reptile enclosure reviews

What we review, how we review it, and - because this is the part nobody else publishes - exactly which numbers a product has to clear to appear here at all.

A crested gecko on a log in a planted enclosure

What a review on this site is

A criteria-scored assessment of currently-sold products against published husbandry standards and manufacturer specifications. Every roundup states its thresholds as numbers at the top of the page, then shows how each pick scored against every one of them - including the ones a product fails.

That last part matters. A product can appear here with a criterion marked as below standard or as not published, because a partial score you can see is more useful than a clean score we invented. Several picks on this site carry a failing footprint row with an explanation of why they are still worth knowing about.

What a review on this site is not

What you will not find in a review here, and why
Not hereWhy
A star rating or score out of tenWe did not lab-test these products. An editorial score dressed up as a product rating would contradict our own copy
Counts or quotes from other sites' reviewersWe have no review data for this business, and other sites' review data is not ours to republish
A price, or a price comparisonA number written weeks ago looks authoritative and is wrong. Every figure resolves at the retailer
A claim that we tested itWhere a product has not been handled here, the site does not imply that it has
A product with no published specificationIf a manufacturer publishes no UVI figure, no service temperature or no footprint, we cannot score it - and we say so rather than ranking it anyway

The criteria sets

Six of them, one per product category, each with the source for every threshold: enclosures, UVB lamps, UVB fixtures, heat sources, thermostats, meters, substrates and enclosure materials. They are set out in full on the methodology page, and every roundup repeats the relevant set on its own page so you never have to take our word for what we judged against.

Single-product deep-dive reviews are not published at launch. The brand-specific search demand we measured is very low, and shipping thin pages to fill out a review section would undercut the thing this section is for. They will be added where there is a real question to answer.

Shed & Bask earns a commission from qualifying Amazon purchases made through links on this page. It does not change what we recommend or the order we rank things in. Read the full disclosure.

Every criteria-scored roundup

18 roundups, each with its criteria published on the page and a buy path for the top pick.