What to do at night?

[clawlan]

So lets say I have my heating element that is a light. At night, just turn it off? Will the temp dip to low? I guess what I'm asking is, what do you do at night?

[wildlifewarrior]

get a purple/incandecent bulb, and leave it on all the time.


~mike

[rabernet]

You must provide heat 24 hours a day. Most keepers use a UTH (Under Tank Heater) controlled by a quality thermostat that's left on all the time.


Lights tend to make keeping humidity in the proper levels challenging.

[chris B]

They also make a CHE, which doesn't emit light, but still gives heat. I myself use I sterlite tub with uth's because I find that much easier to deal with.

[shag]

An infared bulb would be fine too, i use a UTH on a thermostat and the infared in the winter months to help keep temps up on the cool side. I've never tried just a bulb for heat, and dont know how effective they are at heating a tank? Which im assuming is the type of enclosure where using here.

[hardball]

i had the same problem and i just went out and bought a red bulb from petco. pretty easy change, but im definately lacking light in my room now because it doesnt emit a whole lot of light but its doing a good job helping keep the temperature up.

[clawlan]

hm. So will an UTH be enough heat? Every tank I see has a light fixture on top. (This is for a glass tank)

[dr del]

Hi,


That seems to depend a lot on the ambient room temperatures and what brand of heating you choose.


dr del

[clawlan]

Hi,


That seems to depend a lot on the ambient room temperatures and what brand of heating you choose.


dr del

Well, what do you recommend for a tank setup?

[dr del]

Hi,


Well again that depends on ambient temps and what you want in a tank.

If the ambient temps are in the low 80's and all you want is to keep the snake as happy as possible then I'd probably recomend a tub set up with a nice thermostat coupled to flexwatt under one third of the tank.

If, however, you had your heart set on a display tank in a cold room then obviously you are going to need either a uth at both ends (with warm end only being a third of the floor space) or possibly some kind of ceramic/bulb heater to supplement. And then you have to factor in substrate and how it will affect the performance of an under tank heating system.

On a side note if you want to use any form of incandecent heating in a tank then you need a proportional thermostat which obviously costs more otherwise the blinking on and off will drive you nuts.

Also if you plan to get more snakes fairly soon then a rack system or stackable enclosure might also be an option.

Best advice is to work out what features you want, what it has to contend with to provide the right temps etc and then look at the threads in the caging forum to find one that can do all that while giving you the look you would prefer (if that's important).

Then try and find out if it is within budget. Realistically don't skimp on the caging but there is no reason to spend thousands either.

hope this long ramble helps a little.



dr del