What you need
- Windows 10 or 11 with Stream Deck software 7.1 or newer.
- Any Stream Deck: there are pages for the Stream Deck, Mini, XL, +, Neo, Mobile and the Corsair Galleon 100 SD (on the Galleon, hold a dial for about 3 seconds to reach its second layer).
- Nothing else: no account, and it never goes online. Your vivarium is saved on your PC.
1. Getting started
On the Elgato Marketplace. Install Reptiles from its Marketplace listing; Stream Deck loads it automatically. It is the third Deck Pets habitat, after Fish Tank and Rodents.
- Find Deck Pets in the Stream Deck actions list and drag the Vivarium key onto any page.
- Press it. A new vivarium offers a line-up of starters: leopard geckos, crested geckos and corn snakes. Pick one.
- The whole deck becomes the vivarium: the warm end under the heat lamp on the left, the cool end with the water dish on the right, and your controls along the bottom.
Demo profiles
A ready-made page with the Vivarium key and the care keys for each Stream Deck. Download the one for your deck and double-click it to import it into Stream Deck.
- Stream Deck: Vivarium, Feed, Water, Mist and Lamp along the top row, with Clean and Status below
- Stream Deck Mini: Vivarium, Feed & water and Clean, then Status, Lamp and Mist
- Stream Deck XL: seven keys along the top row, with room for your own
- Stream Deck +: Vivarium, Feed, Mist and Status keys, and the Vivarium, Feed & water, Lamp and Go dials
- Stream Deck Neo: Vivarium, Feed & water, Clean and Lamp, then Status and Mist
2. Looking after them
- Feed puts in what each hungry animal eats: live crickets that wander the floor until they are caught, greens or fruit mix in a dish, or a thawed mouse for a snake. It only puts in what will be eaten, and the key says when nobody is hungry (or too cold, or in shed, to eat). Lizards and the tortoise eat about daily, a corn snake every three or four days, a ball python about weekly; a snake lies still for a day or so to digest.
- Water fills the water dish.
- Mist raises the humidity: crested geckos and ball pythons want it often, corn snakes and tortoises about daily, leopard geckos and dragons rarely. Mist past what they like and the air gets too damp. An automatic fogger from the shop does it for you.
- Clean works an area at a time: press Clean, then the keys with mess on.
- Lamp: press for warmer, hold for cooler. It shows the heat as steps beside the bulb, the warm and cool temperatures and the UVB tube, and a press also replaces a blown bulb or a worn tube.
- Press the key an animal is on to handle it, or a key with a shed skin to pick it up. A key with nobody on it points to the nearest.
3. Heat and light
- The heat lamp warms the warm end on its own timer, lit by day and dark at night. It has three heats, Low, Normal and High: press Lamp for warmer, hold it for cooler (or turn the Lamp dial), and hold it at Low to switch the lamp off. When someone is cold or too hot, the Lamp key and the warning say what to do.
- Too small a lamp for the vivarium and even High never gets the warm end warm enough; the key then says to buy the next lamp up, and the huge lamp (level 6) keeps a bearded dragon warm even in the grand vivarium. A thermostat sets the heat for you, and the key says Auto. A cold animal will not eat.
- The UVB tube: bearded dragons and tortoises need it for their bones; the others are happier with it. In Simulation a T8 lasts a week of the lamp being on and a T5 two, and heat bulbs blow now and then; the Lamp key shows it, and a press fits a new one (a bulb is free if you have no scales). In Casual neither ever happens.
4. Water, mist and shedding
- Crested geckos and ball pythons want humid air, corn snakes and tortoises in between, leopard geckos and bearded dragons dry. The air dries out over hours, faster under a lit lamp; soil and live plants hold it longer.
- Every so often an animal goes dull, then sheds. In humid enough air (or with a humid hide) the skin comes off in one piece and lies on the floor, worth a few scales to pick up. In dry air it gets stuck until you mist it.
5. Handling
Press the key an animal is on to pick it up: that is how they tame, bearded dragons fastest and ball pythons slowest. Leave them be when they are resting out of their hours, in shed, or sleeping off a meal: a snake handled just after eating may bring it back up.
6. Eggs and the incubator
- A grown, content pair of one species, in a vivarium with only one male, has a clutch: the female is gravid for a while, then lays in the substrate. Eggs take no room, but the young grow up: a clutch never takes the vivarium more than two past its room, and the key tells you how many to rehome.
- Eggs left there rarely hatch. The incubator takes them, and has a page of its own: each egg with its countdown, and a heat key.
- For some species, as in real life, the incubator's heat decides the sex: warm leopard gecko eggs hatch mostly males and cool ones females; warm dragon and tortoise eggs hatch mostly females. The heat key says which applies.
- Hatchlings are small, eat often, and grow up over a few days.
7. The animals
| Animal | Level | Up by | Air | Eats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leopard gecko | 1 | night | dry | insects |
| Crested gecko | 2 | night | humid | fruit mix |
| Corn snake | 3 | night | temperate | a mouse every 3-4 days |
| Bearded dragon | 4 | day | dry, hot basking, UVB | insects and greens |
| Ball python | 5 | night | humid | a mouse about weekly |
| Hermann's tortoise | 6 | day | temperate, UVB | greens |
They climb, too: geckos and snakes sit up on the hides and the cork bark, a bearded dragon or a leopard gecko basks on the rock (more when it is cold), the crested gecko and corn snake take to the branches and vines, and a tortoise leans on the digging box. Species never share a vivarium, and it is one male per vivarium. A second vivarium from the shop keeps a second species, and both share one wallet.
8. Morphs and one-offs
Every animal is a morph, from Common to Legendary, the way keepers talk about them: Mack Snow and Tangerine leopard geckos, Banana and Piebald ball pythons. The rarer it is, the more scales it brings in. Above them all are six named one-offs, one for each species, which are never sold and only hatch from two Rare-or-better parents.
9. The status page
Press Status and the vivarium is laid out a fact to a key: the warm end and the cool end as two ticks on one scale with the basking range boxed, humidity with the range your animals like boxed, the UVB tube and when it wants replacing, the water dish and how long it will last, how clean it is and where it is dirtiest, and the night animals' hours as a bar across the day. Single keys cover the lamp and its timer, the heat bulb, misting or the fogger, food out, the substrate, your level and scales an hour, and each animal: how it is and when it is up till or asleep till. Press an animal to open it, or the eggs to open the incubator. News has its own key beside Back, and holding Status still opens your animals.
10. Settings
- Simulation or Casual: in Casual, nobody dies, and UVB tubes and heat bulbs never wear out.
- Illness, off unless you want it.
- Scales and XP multipliers, up to ten times.
- Night animals: when your geckos and snakes are up. Natural follows the day hours, Swapped turns the day round, or pick your own hours, say 6 pm to 2 am, so they are up while you are at your desk. The lamp's timer follows, and the bearded dragon and tortoise keep the day hours.
- Day hours, across decks, smoothness, How to play, your record.
- Back up save: keeps a dated copy of your vivarium in
%APPDATA%\DeckPets\backups(the newest 20 are kept); hold it to open that folder. - Reset save: starts a new vivarium, with safeguards: a press arms it (the key turns red and counts down five seconds), then a two-second hold resets. Anything else, or the countdown running out, cancels it. It always backs up first, and will not reset if the backup fails.
Frequently asked
Where are the other dial controls on the Galleon 100 SD?
Each of the Galleon's two dials has two layers. The top layer has Feed & water and Go; the second layer has Clean and Lamp. Hold a dial pressed for about 3 seconds to switch it to its other layer, and again to switch back. The Stream Deck app shows all four at once, but the keyboard uses one layer at a time.
How do I put a backup back?
Quit Stream Deck, copy the backup you want from %APPDATA%\DeckPets\backups over
%APPDATA%\DeckPets\reptiles.json, and start Stream Deck again.
My geckos are always hiding.
Most of these animals are up at night. In the settings, set Night animals to Swapped, or pick your own hours, and they will be up while you are.
Will my animals die while I am away?
No. Time away runs at half speed for up to three days and cannot kill anything.
Something is still wrong.
Email support@teatimeservers.ca and tell us what you see.