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Posted by the lizard lady on May 08, 2003 at 13:49:32:
In Reply to: Deformities or Mutation???? posted by jeffmedley on May 08, 2003 at 12:38:06:
I have used Ron Tremper's method (which BTW is really Dr. Brian E. Viets' method,) for a couple of years and have never experienced any deformities or egg failure. I agree with the theory that temperature can play a key role in the development of the embryo, and could potentially cause abnormalities in growth. But I also suspect that most people on this forum use Hovabators, which has a sub-standard wafer type thermal regulator, and this could pose a problem for this method of incubation.
I too, have a Master's Degree in Chemistry (not BIO), but have done some interesting studies on the temperature fluctuation of the Hovabator. Basically, what happens is when an adjustment is made (especially to a higher temperature), the actual temperature can overshoot as much as 5 degrees before the temperature regulator shuts off the element thus allowing the chamber to cool back down. The temperature can then drop up to 3 degrees below the 'set' temperature, and then the element comes back on heating up the chamber and overshooting again... and so on. We all know that things heat up much faster than they cool down, an my educated guess is that
The graphs I made show a sine wave form where the actual temperature oscillates from +/-5 degrees when plotted with temp vs. time as constant. So... say you have your Hovabator set to maintain a temperature of 82 degrees F. Then you turn up the controller the where you think 90 degrees should be. The actual temperature can overshoot up to 95 degrees before the controller shuts off the element. Then it takes 30 minutes for the temperature to drop down to 88 degrees before it turns back on. Then, it overshoots again to a temperature of 94 degrees, and so on and so on...
I would assume (and you know what that means!)that a Leopard Geckos embryo could tolerate a lower temperature temporarily much better than a higher temperature over a longer period of time, and that is why I have separate designated incubators where I simply remove the eggs from the lower temperature after about 18 days and put them directly into the higher temp for the remainder of the incubation. Any thoughts?
