# Lighting timer and feeding question



## TheWonderer (Sep 30, 2016)

Hi there,

I'm having issues with my lighting timer. It's not working in keeping with a 12 hr cycle. Any suggestions for a good one? Also, my tegu is young and growing but not really eating. He's new had him for almost a week now. He's exploring and eating a bit but not much. I'm just wondering how feeding outside the enclosure would work. I set up a wild life cam to check him out while I'm at work. He's pretty active. Just for reference, he's young and about 2' now. He grew a huge amount. I can't seem him growing and not eating.. Any suggestions on this? I'm feeding him mostly ground turkey raw and leaving it in there for the time I'm at work. Is it possible that the pieces are too big? I was thinking that might be the case but unsure.


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## Walter1 (Sep 30, 2016)

TheWonderer said:


> Hi there,
> 
> I'm having issues with my lighting timer. It's not working in keeping with a 12 hr cycle. Any suggestions for a good one? Also, my tegu is young and growing but not really eating. He's new had him for almost a week now. He's exploring and eating a bit but not much. I'm just wondering how feeding outside the enclosure would work. I set up a wild life cam to check him out while I'm at work. He's pretty active. Just for reference, he's young and about 2' now. He grew a huge amount. I can't seem him growing and not eating.. Any suggestions on this? I'm feeding him mostly ground turkey raw and leaving it in there for the time I'm at work. Is it possible that the pieces are too big? I was thinking that might be the case but unsure.


Others can help you with suggestions for a good timer and about feeding outside the enclosure.

Regarding eating, don't worry about one week of disinterest. They're tough but a big change in their routine takes a bit of getting used to.

For food, Whole prey items, such as frozen/thawed rodents heavily-dusted (snowstorm) with calcium powder, should form the mainstay of its diet. You can also offer organ meat, high quality wet dog food, strawberries, and such.


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## dpjm (Sep 30, 2016)

I've used lots of varieties of timers over the years. There are analog (dial) and digital. Analogs are cheaper and far easier to set up and adjust but might not keep time as well. Digital are more expensive and can be very difficult to set up and also to adjust, but once you have them going they keep time very well. Digital will also have a built in memory that can save the setup in case of a power outage, you won't have to go through the setup process again. Digital will give you more options as well, like having different programs for different days of the week. They are also silent while analogs can make a bit of noise when they get older.

I would usually recommend an analog if you don't really care about the extra features of the digital. I'm guessing you want to run the same program every day, maybe with seasonal adjustments. I actually have never really run into any problems with analogs, but for some noise.


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## TheWonderer (Oct 3, 2016)

Hey so my tegu has started to jump up to top of his enclosure and hit it hard. Should I let him out? He has pooped so it's not that. I think he ate the other day. He has shed too. He's about 20 inches. Enclosure is a 40 gallon glass enclosure. I can take him out and let him roam in my room. I have some mice that I can thaw and feed him now. The temperature at his basking spot is about 110 with the warm side reaching about 95. Any ideas about this behavior? I watch him on a wifi cam so I can keep tabs on him.


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## Brinven (Oct 3, 2016)

20" Tegu in a 40 gallon? sounds to me like he needs a lot more room... he's probably bored snotless.

Oh and Timer ... I picked this one up at Lowes for $17 : 

http://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-1...ial-Plug-in-Countdown-Lighting-Timer/50063929

It seems pretty accurate so far (had it a week  )


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## TheWonderer (Oct 3, 2016)

Yes, I'm thinking the same thing. I'm working on getting something bigger.


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## Roadkill (Oct 3, 2016)

Ah timers.....there's timers and then there's timers. I'm betting my experience with timers probably exceeds most peoples considering how long I've worked with them, the disturbingly many, many, many I have bought over the years, and the capacities I've had ......
Long story short - you get what you pay for, and often not even that. Most of the timers that people think of, in the relatively cheap range, are what I would consider junk. Don't be insulted by this, I'm not being a snob, I buy and use the cheapos too, but they are without question usually junk. The average digital timer I won't even look at anymore. I've tried my share of the ones you'd buy at a hardware store, and I consider each and every purchase of one would have been better spent on lottery tickets. ALL failed within a year. This is not to say there aren't good digital timers out there, but they aren't going for $10-30 at Home Depot/Lowes.
If cheap is what you are after, then analog is your better bet. Admittedly, they don't have the fancy features, but in my experience they tend to be a little more reliable, if only slightly so. Even so, many are made with plastic gears, and I've had them start making grinding noises that annoy the hell out of me, and usually fail eventually.
Those power bars with the built in timers? Digital or analog? I've tried a number of them too. Again, disturbingly high failure rate. I think just about every one I have ever purchased has failed and are no better than a simple power bar, some not even that.
My advice: if you're anything like me and hate having to waste money on purchasing the same item even every couple of years, the better investment for timers is in the more rugged outdoor, all-weather timers.
For straight forward simple timers to control plugged in stuff, the gold standard is one of these:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Intermat...tch-with-Outdoor-Enclosure-T104RD89/203569316
Yes, it is ugly as sin. Yes, it's as big as your neighbor's fat momma's ass. Yes, it is blocky, unattractive, and requires some skill to put to use. And yes, that is a seemingly terrible price for a simple timer. But the fact is - all metal parts, extremely reliable, and as long as you have power, they don't quit. There is a reason these are used in industrial and research facilities to control important timing issues. They aren't pretty, but they rarely fail.
Now, if you are into paying way more and want features, I suggest leaving the hardware store and getting into vivarium controllers. There are a number of highly reliable models on the market, such as the ubiquitous HerpStat from Spyder Robitics:
http://www.spyderrobotics.com/
the EcoZone vivarium controller:
http://www.ecozonevivarium.com/
and Vivarium Electronics controller:
http://www.vivariumelectronics.com/

Then you can get really fancy. There's a company that produces a lighting timer that is.....probably more than the average hobbyist even cares about. You can program it to whatever setting you want, but that would be stupid to do with these guys' device. You can do that far cheaper with other stuff. The reason you get one of these is far different - It actually mimics proper photoperiod. And when I say proper photoperiod, I mean the whole kit and caboodle. Dimming on and dimming off, length of time of dimming, control of intensity, daily variation of photoperiod - these units allow total control of the photoperiod as long as you have the hardware to supply it (or they will build that for your too). The feature I like - pick any geographic coordinate on the planet and it will mimic the entire year's dynamic photoperiod of that location, starting at whatever date/season you choose. Such magnificence doesn't come cheap, though. The basic control unit, not including the hardware for the actual lighting you may need, starts at about $3000. These are custom built for controlling facilities, greenhouse growing operations, etc., they don't have an "off the shelf model" for your basic terrarium.....


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## dpjm (Oct 4, 2016)

Hmm, I've never had much trouble with timers at all. I still have analog ones I've used for 10+ years, the only issue I've had with any is a bit of noise with older ones. I don't think I've thrown more than one timer away that I've ever used. I've never had an issue with any digital timer except for initial difficulty learning to program them.

I love the idea of timers with programmable dimmers, I've often dreamed that such an item would be available. You could have so much fun with that. I would try to program it to have low color temp lights go on first, then progressively dim those out while higher temp lights start to come on and peak around noon, then reverse back into low towards the end of the day. Throw uv lamps into the mix and then you're having a good time. Roadkill, can you provide a link to this product?


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## Roadkill (Oct 6, 2016)

I was going to.....but I think I have that saved on a computer that's basically in storage at the moment. I'll be the first to admit I had stumbled upon them, they didn't just pop up on an internet search. As I recall, the name of their product popped up a few times in some research articles I had been reading, so that's how I looked them up. They seemed (at the time) a very friendly company, even volunteered to arrange a tour of a facility using their set-up at a "nearby" university.

But yeah, I used to think analog timers never died out, had some for years, and then they all started failing, hence I'm not the biggest fan. I think I'd say the analog ones you put pins in to set the times seem to last longer than the ones with built in pins that you push in/pull up to set. Although, all that being said, I stumbled upon an article since I wrote the above response that is making me want to try out using a Raspberry Pi to make a controller. Good skill at coding and one should be able to set up quite a versatile controller with one of those.


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## dpjm (Oct 7, 2016)

> making me want to try out using a Raspberry Pi to make a controller



That's interesting, but way above my skill level. Let us know if it ever turns out.


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## Roadkill (Oct 9, 2016)

http://www.raspiviv.com/raspberry-pi-vivarium-controller/sensors


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## dpjm (Oct 9, 2016)

Thanks, looks like you could do some interesting things with that. 

Funny, since we were on the subject, I finally had a timer crap out on me today. It kept the device on but the timer dial had stopped spinning.


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