Rubbermaid bin

[wolfy-hound]

I have a nice big rubbermaid(50 qt) and have drilled the holes along the top rim already. The substrate is ready, have a water dish, will have 2 hides soon. I have a heat pad for it, but... should I attach it to the side? Or to the bottom. I was going to stick it on the bottom, with some little round feet glued to the bottom to lift it off the floor(so the heat pad would not be squished between two surfaces). And I have one of the thermometer/humidity sensor from Walmart to let her moniter both ends.
Will that work? If so, I am nearly done with it.
This is for a friend of mine who is going to take one of my excess ball python males. I told her I'd just get all the set up for her so she doesn't have to worry with it.
I also have some fake vines in there as well for the lucky snake to slither through as all my guys seem to love that.
Any addtional ideas? Am I forgetting anything?
Wolfy

[kavmon]

put it on the bottom. use a thermostat to control temps!


vaughn

[4theSNAKElady]

Hmmmmm.....I'm not so sure about putting a heat pad on a plastic rubbermaid container.....I have had them melt right through the plastic over time. Just be very careful.You might want to consider telling your friend to eventually invest in a cage made of glass, or try a heat lamp instead.

[SatanicIntention]

If you have had rubbermaid/iris/sterilite containers melt while using undertank heating, then there must have not been any regulation on the heating device. That is extremely unsafe for both the animal and your house. Plastic has quite a high melting point, so the heating device most likely shorted out and melted everything.

I use two different sheets of flexwatt controlled by a Herpstat 2 and the bottom of my Ball's tub is warm, which obviously isn't even warm enough to make the tub warp.

Every single, reputable Ball Python breeder I have seen uses plastic housing in racks and undertank heating such as flexwatt to heat their snakes. There is not much of a risk if you have a good thermostat controlling it.

[wolfy-hound]

Best inexpensive yet reliable thermostat?
Thanks for the information guys! I want to set her up properly.

[wolfy-hound]

Here are pictures of how I attached feet to the bin to raise it up, yet make it still look quite professional.
The materials http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../SnakeBin1.jpg
After drilling the hole through the bottom of the bin http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../SnakeBin2.jpg
The finished foot in place http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../SnakeBin3.jpg
The finished product http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../SnakeBin4.jpg
Total cost of materials for the feet attachments was $2.18
It took me about ten minutes, but only because I did NOT have a rachet the correct size and had to hand put on the nuts. With the rachet it would have taken maybe four minutes total.
I had not seen any ideas on how to put feet on a bin so thought I would post this. If you have a really large bn, you could simply add more feet to distribute the load better so the center would not sag.
This way I can slap the heat pad under it and have plenty of ventilation.
What does everyone think?
Wolfy(who loves her cordless drill)