Temp for my Opacums

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ReiDragon

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I have 4 marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum) juveniles. I keep them on a half top soil half eco earth sunbstrate with plenty of moss and bark hides. My question is it is now summer here and occasionally the tank temp creeps up into the high seventies.

I am afraid this is way to warm for them and I mist them frequently on the hot days. They have not gone off food or anything. Their tank is seeded with wood lice and they eat a earthworm every three days. Is their anyway to lower their temp to a more acceptable level?

We have a bad mold problem in our basement so I am afraid to move them down there. What else could I do? My fiance will not let me turn on the air conditioner until it gets in the high eighties. Is their anything I can do to lower the temp?
 
High seventies is indeed too hot. If your animals are healthy, as it seems they are, they can tolerate those temps, provided it´s not for stended periods of time. Heat weakens their inmune system and makes them susceptible to diseases.
You should try to keep them colder...ideally under 65ºF.
 
Or you can be crazy like me. I dug a hole through my basement floor and dug 3 feet down. I live in an 100 year old house that only has 4 inches of concrete in the basement. My house was not built on a concrete slab foundation. Im going to drop their container down into it and cover it with a 3 inch styrofoam top. This is the cheapest way to keep your animals cool. I was also planning to expand the hole to make it 3 ft wide 6 ft long and 4 ft deep. Then I was going to lay 30 feet of hose and cover it with soil. And pump my tank water through that to cool it. But I have no idea how well it would work. Just an idea for the other crazy people in here.
 
BillYannone said:
Or you can be crazy like me. I dug a hole through my basement floor and dug 3 feet down. I live in an 100 year old house that only has 4 inches of concrete in the basement. My house was not built on a concrete slab foundation. Im going to drop their container down into it and cover it with a 3 inch styrofoam top. This is the cheapest way to keep your animals cool. I was also planning to expand the hole to make it 3 ft wide 6 ft long and 4 ft deep. Then I was going to lay 30 feet of hose and cover it with soil. And pump my tank water through that to cool it. But I have no idea how well it would work. Just an idea for the other crazy people in here.
Click to expand...



Excellent idea! (If you have a house with a basement.;)) Soil type comes into play here, while that would work very well in PA, if you have sandy soil it may be more of a headache than anything else.

What scares me is the dimensions of that hole...isn't that standard grave sized?:eek:

I should mention that this thread shows some interesting other cooling options:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=60161
 
Thanks so much for the links guys. I am going to move them to the basement. That seems like the ideal place until it cools down a bit. Any ideas to help me prevent mold?
 
I keep my salamanders in containers without lids that are plenty deep enough that I know they can't climb out or with lids that I have cut large openings in. Then I glue screen over the opening.
Airflow is very important. I also have a fan on all day in their area. Be careful no to point it at them and dry out their enclosure. I just have it pointed up in the air away from them on low to keep the air moving. I know some people that keep their opacums on damp paper towls. I tried this once but found the black mold grew very fast this way. Hope this helps
 
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