Joe Westerman

Just a thought, what sort of thermometer are you using? Staying permanently under the lamps usually means it's not warm enough. Any enclosed thermometer will give a false reading directly under lamps as there is no way of heat escaping properly! Just a though ;)

Fitted the 80w bulb, the new temps in the basking light is 29c - 33c so im happy with that.

I also added more light to the table to make it brighter, i think that's why he was staying in the basking light, as the other part of the table was to dark for him. He has started to moving around using more space. I am now looking into a flood light for him but i don't want one to heat the table up more. any ideas ? 

I use a inferred laser gun for temp checks. 

An 80 watt will certainly do the job and you can always use the higher wattage in colder weather when ambient temps drop. Worth knowing though that all ages have the same requirements and even 32 will kill if he doesn't move out of it.

Yeah Tank (the tortoise) stays in the hot part of the basking light. Whenever checking on him he always comes up to the side to see if im going to give him a little treat, its only red chicory.

I was thinking the 100w bulb with come in handy when winter comes.

Thanks for the help.

No, dimming these will invalidate the guarantee. Dimming stats are not good for tortoise enclosures anyway as they move away from the natural approach. 35 is not so hot and a healthy tortoise will move in and out of the heat the same as it would the sun in the wild ;) remember the sun doesn't have a stat ;)

Thank you for the reply, i really want the temp to be around the 30c - 32c max as my tortoise is only a year old.

Ill order a 80w bulb to see if that lowers it down a little plus save on electric.