Humidity and lighting

[afghanvet]

I have two 160 watt mvb uvb bulbs and a regular lowes heat lamp to make a temperature gradient in the enclosure and two heat emitters for night to keep the temp up at night and a space heater set on 70 for the room The heat emmiters keep it at 85-90 all night in the upper part I have a small reptile waterfall for water movement, a cat litter pan with water and a humidifier. Does it sound like I'm on the right path? I've had Fred and Wilma over a month now and they're getting calmer. Both love bananas from my hand after work at 6pm. Some nights they just lick the piece of banana from my hand, but I take that as progress. During the day they mostly eat fresh collards, kale greens, butternut and accord squash. They love snap peas and collards. I mix just a tad of frozen veggies for color and add B1 once a week. I also crush a tums and sprinckle on mondays They won't touch fresh blackberrys. Does it sound like Im missing anything? The cool mist humidifier puts out a lot of air on low, so I have it on the daytime timers. Should I have it on all night too? The humidity is around 50-60 during the day and when it's off at night the humidity drops to 30. Will the noise and cool mist bug them when it's on at night or should I worry more about keeping the enclosures humidity up at night? Sorry so long. I shad two mbd igs 10 or so years ago and I didn't help them much even though I though I was at the time. I don't want a sick ig. Oh, they both passed their physicals and are good for 6 months to a year. Both are getting a touch of triple antibiotic on their noses.

[JennaAndIguanaGwen]

Hey Mike!

It definitely sounds like you're on the right path I would recommend leaving the humidifier off at night; it won't cause any problems and the sound might interrupt their sleep. So- a couple of things: I don't know what B1 is and I don't know the pros and cons of crushed tums but if you want to add supplements to your iguanas food I would suggest to add a calcium supplement every once in a while. You can buy Repcal from most large pet stores; it's a calcium supplement. Careful how much kale you feed them - it should only be fed occasionally

I Love the effort you put into making sure your iguanas have the best ;D You're doing great!

-Jenna

[afghanvet]

My mistake, I don't feed them Kale. It's turnip greens with collards. Our capital market had collards, kale and turnip greens. I knew collards were good, but I had to do a quick search on the website for turnip and kale. kale was occasional, so I passed. Our pharmacist said tums are good as any calcium suppliment, and I've read online where folks use it with no complications. I used a pet store calcium suppliment in the past, I believe it was Reptical, but not sure. If I saw the container, I would recognize it. Three of my iguanas ended up with MBD in the past. I'm sure it was other factors, but unless I can test the results or know the FDA has approved it for human consumption, I'm having a hard time using it. Human medicine is FDA approved. It's just me being OCD. haha. Human suppliments are not FDA approved, so I try to use something considered medicine. Iguana society recommends brewers yeast or B1 as a suppliment for frozen veggies. With my theory above, I should be using the brewers yeast. I only put a little frozen veggies on the leaf pile just for color. I hope they don't get sick. It's taken me over 10 years to try this again.

Thank you so much for your info. I appreciate it very much.