60W vs. 100W

[Itwas]

250w basking? do you live in an igloo? I cannot believe that a 250w bulb only heats to 85 degrees, how far away from the cage is it, 2 miles?

 

[Sirny]

yea youre tellin me cant figure it out, been like that for 2 years, have tried multiple temperature readers etc. just what works i suppose, bout 7 inches from top of cage and maybe 12 from basking spot

 

[pennington]

It never seems to make much sense! I've had a 150w infrared bulb only reaching 77 and my 60w ceramic reaching 70. Hopefully the 100w ceramic that is on its way will get that temperature up. If not I'll try the bulb Jojackson mentioned. Love collecting those bulbs!
Sirny are you using a thermostat? or just a bulb all out there on its own?

 

[Chris Jury]

If you're only seeing relatively low basking temps with high wattage bulbs, put the basking branches higher. Also, if the ambient temperature is low (lower than ~75 F, 24 C) I'd raise the ambient temp up to about there, which may require insulating the cage via plastic wrapping, or something like that.

You shouldn't need to use very high wattage bulbs (100 watts+) to achieve proper temps, if the basking area is at an appropriate distance from the bulb, and the ambient temp isn't too low.