Final Answer

[greenmonkey51]

As some of you may know I've been having problems with my temperatures. I have 2 options for what to do now.
1. keep the glass tank and put a 12x11 peice of flexwatt on the cool end with a dimmer set on low.

2. Make a plastic cage and use a single peice of flexwatt on a dimmer.

Whats the best option. Would the single peice of flexwatt be able to heat the plastic cage in a 73 degree basement. I may get a thermastat from mgr reptiles.

[kavmon]

the plastic tubs hold humidity really well. they are shorter in height than a tank so they should heat better also. matt sells complete tub kits too. if your basement is too cold, you may problems with any setup unless you really put alot of heat in there regulated by thermostats.


vaughn

[led4urhead]

Moved to the caging forum.

[Jeanne]

Have you tried covering the top of your existing tank with plastic? More than likely you are losing heat through the top. I have had my bp's in 40 gallon breeder tanks and NEVER had any problems with heat of humidity because I cover the top of the screen most of the way with heavy painters plastic. For summer months, I can take it off if the need arises.

[TekWarren]

I have to agree with the using tubs, for me personally they have been better all around for holding heat/humidity...and cleaning...oh my gosh there is no comparison to cleaning light weight tubs to glass aquariums like I had used in the past what a time saver! And the tubs are less fragil to cracks...even if does your out maybe a few bucks at most.

[Smulkin]

Hy my name is Smulkin and I am an admitted former-tank fanatic.

("Welcome Smulkin!" and golf claps plz thx)

Even after having covered my screen lids with contac paper (best option i personally came across) and getting temp and humidity pegged perfectly maintenance was still a chore. And I always worried there was no cross ventilation (though with tweaking of the open corners i got it managed). Cleaning a slew of these was a pain at best.

What deterred me from going tupperware for the longest time was my desire to see UNIMPAIRED my lovely lil snakes any time i wanted. I eventually concluded that this was something i was doing for myself and not the betterment of the snake's environment. I am nto saying it is selfish to want to observe your snake - but given the (growing) numbers of them, combined weight of tanks, size upgrade path requirements etc it made no sense for me to cling to glass.

I got to say maintenance is now much much easier and it is a far more cost-effective solution.

[jglass38]

Tubs, tubs, tubs, rack systems, plastic caging...Glass tanks should have fish in them. Even my dry air, hot heat loving Mali Uro hates his glass tank. Scratches the walls all day. I need to get him out of there. Anyway, back to the point.

Plastic is where its at!

[Smulkin]

Glass tanks should have fish in them.

Haha - au contraire mon fraire

I'll stick with my ratropolis!

[jglass38]

Haha - au contraire mon fraire

I'll stick with my ratropolis!

Ratropolis? That is what I call my freezer. There won't be any room for food once I get my rodentpro order next week!

[Smulkin]

Hahah - thats exactly what happened to us. Wings and all the other big 'ole bags of frozen food were displaced . . much to the chagrin of the kids i might add. We verged on getting a standalone freezer before our rat pop unexpectedly started booming during last winters' slacked feeding.

Rodentpro was good stuff though - muy caro but always top qual and there fast.