Last season I just used a little wine chiller that would hold 6 clutches. I set the HerpStat to 89.5F and called it a day. All was fine with all 6 of my clutches last year.
This season we had so many more females ready to lay that we needed a larger incubator. I had a fridge that a friend gave me for free, so I decided to use that. I removed the glass shelves and used closet racks cut to size. I had it running for over a month with twelve EMPTY 6qt tubs and a full case of 12oz water bottles in it (on the door and in the bottom) and it was great..... 1.5F from top to bottom. I have two 36" sections of 11" heat tape on the back, and two 120mm, 12v DC fans inside with a HerpStat controlling the heat tape and the sensor right in the middle shelf.
I then started to add clutches to the top of the fridge.... temps started to vary more..... like 2.5F top to bottom. Strange I figured, but temps were still within safe limits (89.5F- 87.0F). I installed cheap little $8 temp sensors in tubs on all 3 levels of the incubator last week. With a GREAT suggestion from my friend joebad976 here on the forum, I put a light diffuser on top of the bottom shelf of glass (which I did not remove the glass from) to get airflow under the tubs on the bottom shelf. I then put media in ALL empty tubs in the fridge. Temps began to equalize from top to bottom. I rotated the sensors from tub to tub for a few days to check for stability. We are now sitting with a 0.4F difference from top to bottom with 8 clutches in the incubator and 4 tubs with just media ready for clutches.
I just wanted to make this post so some of you don't start pulling your hair out like I was wondering why you might have temps off from top to bottom.
Just my input from a little testing of my own.... Fill your incubator as close to possible like you would run it as it was full of clutches
Happy incubating
I have one sensor inside the incubator not pictured. It has a temp probe and a hygrometer probe. The probes were too large for me to feel like drilling holes in the side of the fridge, so I just left it inside. Probe (Black display and black wires) is on the Middle Left (Butter Het Clown x Fire Het Clown) and is 88.5F and humidity is 99%.
Inside.... pic taken yesterday. Note the light diffuser under the tubs on the bottom shelf and the sensor wires in the tubs.
Top Left (Banana x Pastel)- 88.5F
Top Right (Albino Enchi x Albino)- 88.3F
Middle Mid tub (Enchi Fire x Champagne)- 88.7F (Remember tub Middle left right next to this is 88.5F)
Bottom left (Banana x Normal)- 88.4F
Wine Chiller (18" of 11" heat tape and one 120mm 12v DC fan).... Middle shelf (no clutch.... just media)- 88.5F
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