Two heating pad questions I have.....

Right now I have a 20gal tank, but next week I will be buying a 40gal tank for my new little bp to grow up in. Anyway I have 2 questions about heating pads:

1) is it fine to have the heating pad positioned under his hide away, or will this cause the temperature in the hide to be to high? Is the hide suppose to be a cooler place? or will the heat from a heating pad under it be fine?

2) I have owned lizards in the past. For them I used a reptile heating pad that sticks to the underside of the bottom of the tank, but I have also heard people use the heating pads you use for people for their bp's.

If so, which would be more efficient, and how do you go about placing a normal heating pad you would use for a person under the tank? Do you just lay it under the tank? Is there any real advantage to either type of heating pad? I understand that normal heating pads have a heat output control on them which would be usefull, but does this justify it over the ones built for reptile tanks?

Thanks...

p.s: me and my girlfriend (Tati) ended up naming our new guy "Pina". Tati is a bartender so we named the little guy Pina after the drink Pinacolada :D

Justin,

As long as you have a hide on the cool end, too, it is ok to have the warm end hide directly over the heat pad.

Many people here, myself included, use human heat pads because of the built in temp control, as well as the price. Usually they are set on low, sometimes on medium, and put under the tank. I prefer the human heat pads. The reptile UTH's are too hot for BP's, unless you have substrate they can't get under.

IMO, heat tape is the ultimate. Buy a section of heat tape and connectors from www.beanfarm.com, and a dimmer switch for $4.86 from Wal-mart, and you have the perfectly controllable heating pad for about $15, including shipping.

You must have at least 1 hide on each side - so yes it is okay to have the warm hide on top of the heat pad. Just make sure when you measure your temps you measure surface temps (belly heat) inside the hide to make sure it's not too hot. I use the reptile heating pads on my 2 snake tanks and they get way too hot. For my Ball Python I use Lizard Liner (green felt like carpet) substrate and it is still hot. So I had layers of paper towels to absorb more heat. The set up is the same for my Kenyan Sand Boa except I also have a few inches of crushed walnut shells on top of the carpet and still have to use paper towels to get the temp down. I think in the future I will try the human heating pads.

Cute name!

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