So many questions...

[bryantlucas]

We acquired our little Leo about six months ago, came in a 20 gallon tank with three hides, a red lamp and a 4x6 heat pad. We use the heat pad under one of the hides, and the lamp above the same hide, which may be completely wrong...
She is now a full grown 7" adult and we recently upgraded her roaming area to a 60g Breeder at 48x18x13 and her new space looks empty.
Should we add more hides or scatter some small rocks around ?
Thinking up getting a larger heat pad for the new hot side of her tank, along with dipping into the thermostat arena with maybe a Ink Bird 308 WiFi. Have heard differing opinions about heat pad vs lamp vs Deep Heat and completely unsure
Tank stays around 80 on the cool side, 85 under the hot hide and 92 on top of the hot hide
Every time I think we understand this whole thing it turns out we know nothing and might be completely wrong, and guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[acpart]

The reason it may feel as if you "know nothing" is that there are different ways to do things which may conflict. Usually if you read a bunch of stuff, opinions start centering around a particular idea and it becomes more obvious what to do, Yes, you're right that a larger enclosure should include a larger heat mat. I tend to use heat cable (google "Zoomed heat cable") because it can be installed with tape (I use Nashua tape which looks like aluminum foil with a sticky backing -paper covered- in a duct tape shaped roll) and then uninstalled and installed somewhere else, which the heat pads don't really allow. A thermostat is a great idea. The ones made by Zilla are quite affordable and work well.
I don't know much about Deep Heat, since I have a lot of leopard gecko cages using heat mats and I'm not planning to switch over now. I do know that with a heat mat at the right temperature and ambient light in the room that lets the gecko distinguish between day and night, there's no need for any other kind of lighting. The jury seems to be out as far as whether or not the gecko is aware of red light.
Let me know if you have any more questions.

Aliza