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Heating and Lighting
Heating and Lighting are crucial to safe and healthy Iguana growth. Start out with a 20 gal tank with a screen top for your juvenile Iguana as it will require much larger quarters by the time puberty kicks in your iggy. A spot lamp ranging from 75-100 watts should be fine for the basking side of the tank(as long as your home is in range of 73-76 degrees).At night your iguana will need some supplemental source of heat to keep it warm, a reptile nite-lite source such as the one pictured on the left will suffice. Although the best nite-lite is a ceramic heat source which puts out no visible light at all, giving your iguana its natural darkness for sleeping. The lighting required for vitamin D-3 synthesis which is important to stimulate calcium absorption is known as uvb lighting. The most common used uvb is the "iguana light 5.0". Although nothing comes close to natural sunlight on the market, this light has results resembling that of the sun. This should not be taken grantid for in any way, it is by far one crucial element for a healthy iguana.
Typically the photo period or amount of light needed per day is about 10-13 hours.Timers are available so you can have the iguanas house on auto-pilot to turn your lights on and off. The temperature should stay around 87-96 degrees where your iguana basks and heats itself to digest its food. These guys need heat to thermo-regulate. If it is cold, they are cold, if its warm they are warm. It is important to maintain at least 80 deg during nightime while these guys are babies.
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