vafishinpa
New member
I am considering upgrading my current incubator a little bit, maybe even different set-up all together.
Currently, I am using a two compartment system. The bottom compartment houses 2 brooder bulbs (controlled by a progressive Big Apple thermostat, now discontinued), a shallow pan of water, and the warm air is pulled out of the compartment by a constant speed 4" computer fan. The top compartment is where the plastic shoe boxes with eggs are stacked. Air is in circular constant motion around the egg bins.
I have used the above incubator for mostly colubrid eggs up to this point. Last year, I had a go with beardie eggs with poor success. I believe that some of the failure with the beardie eggs was my own doing....
If I am looking to go into incubating monitor eggs should I change? Incubation of monitors is a bit longer than what I have dealt with before and problems with the incubator could be magnified with the increased time.
Some ideas I am kicking around:
- Keep 2 compartments one for heat & other for eggs
- Keep the water pan, maybe heat it with heat tape
- Switching from brooder bulbs to flex watt 11" tape. If I do this can I fiberglass it in the wall of the incubator?
- Installing a UV bulb in the "heat" compartment .... Why? UV light is used to kill pathogens in bio hoods and water treatment. It could reduce fungus issues without putting drops of bleach into water pan.
- Thermostat upgrade to Helix digital proportional
- Keep it custom built like first one
- Constant air flow necessary?
Let me know what you recommend. Please include success rates of own hatches if possible. My current incubator has been in service for almost a decade now, hatching success with colubrids has been good-great.
Currently, I am using a two compartment system. The bottom compartment houses 2 brooder bulbs (controlled by a progressive Big Apple thermostat, now discontinued), a shallow pan of water, and the warm air is pulled out of the compartment by a constant speed 4" computer fan. The top compartment is where the plastic shoe boxes with eggs are stacked. Air is in circular constant motion around the egg bins.
I have used the above incubator for mostly colubrid eggs up to this point. Last year, I had a go with beardie eggs with poor success. I believe that some of the failure with the beardie eggs was my own doing....
If I am looking to go into incubating monitor eggs should I change? Incubation of monitors is a bit longer than what I have dealt with before and problems with the incubator could be magnified with the increased time.
Some ideas I am kicking around:
- Keep 2 compartments one for heat & other for eggs
- Keep the water pan, maybe heat it with heat tape
- Switching from brooder bulbs to flex watt 11" tape. If I do this can I fiberglass it in the wall of the incubator?
- Installing a UV bulb in the "heat" compartment .... Why? UV light is used to kill pathogens in bio hoods and water treatment. It could reduce fungus issues without putting drops of bleach into water pan.
- Thermostat upgrade to Helix digital proportional
- Keep it custom built like first one
- Constant air flow necessary?
Let me know what you recommend. Please include success rates of own hatches if possible. My current incubator has been in service for almost a decade now, hatching success with colubrids has been good-great.