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Creating a home for an iguana is more than throwing together a 10-gallon tank, hot rock, cutesy bowl, and tossing some pretty bark on the ground. In fact, that is exactly what you should not do! It is also more than lining the back of a 30-gallon tank with a tropical rain forest backdrop and putting in some plants and branches. In creating a home, we must provide for the iguana not only as he is today, but also as he will be in the months and years to come. The captive environment needs to provide a safe place for your iguana to be when you aren't around as well as when you are. The iguana environment needs to be functioning independently of your own environment when it comes to temperatures and humidity. That means that if it is -10° F (-23° C) outside, and 65° F (18° C) inside your home, your iguana's environment must still be 75-88° F (24-31° C) with a basking area of 88-95° F (35° C) during the day, and 70-84° F (21-28° C). If you don't leave your air conditioning on while you are at work on days when the outside temperature tops 100° F, you still have to make sure your iguana's environment maintains the iguana's required gradient, no matter how hot it gets in the rest of your home. Iguanas, like all other reptiles, can be killed by temperatures that are too high, just as they can by temperatures that are too low. Meeting the iguana's environmental needs means you need to provide the right type of lighting and heating, no matter how much it costs. It means that you must keep the humidity up as much as you can without risking health problems and structural damage. It means providing the photoperiods (daytime light/nighttime dark cycles) he needs, not what may be more convenient for you due to your school, work or sleep schedule. Meeting their needs means going crazy trying to keep everything straight, spending time learning things you never thought you'd have to learn, and regularly checking everything because if something can go wrong, it will go wrong, usually at the least opportune time. If you live off the grid, or are dependent part of the time on generators or propane, or live where electricity regularly goes out during periods of severe weather, you still have to provide for your iguana. While a healthy iguana may, under some circumstance, be able to survive a week of temperatures in the mid to high 60s (19-21° C), he won't last much more than that. Unlike you, an iguana can't bundle up in warm clothes or huddle by a wood stove or fireplace, so be prepared to install backup power sources to provide the tropical temperatures your tropical iguana requires throughout the year.
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