How to heat the air inside of a plastic tub

I have a sterilite tub for my snake and am running into issues keeping the air inside above 75 degrees. I live in Washington state so it is pretty chilly. Currently the only way for me to maintain a temperature of >75 degrees in the tub is to set the thermostat for my whole apartment to 75 degrees. This is making me somewhat uncomfortable and has raised my utility bill considerably. So I am wondering if there is a good way that I can raise the temperature of the air inside the tub without heating my entire apartment.

I use a space heater close to the front of the tubs and monitor the cool side temperature

The only way to increase the air temp in tubs is to heat the room. This is the biggest con of tubs, and something that a lot of people forget to mention when they recommend that everybody switch to tubs.

Tiny space heater does the job.

Do you think a regular reptile heat lamp would work if I poked a ton of small holes into the lid below the lamp? Or maybe just cut one big hole and put mesh over it?

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Originally Posted by Rob

Tiny space heater does the job.

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Yes, if I can't come up with a better way I will probably get a space heater so I can attempt to just heat the air around the tank. And at some point I am going to get a roommate so heating the whole apartment to 75 degrees will be unacceptable. However this is inefficient because most of the heat will escape into the room instead of being directed into the bin where it belongs.

You could use a radiant heat panel. For quarantines I have placed tubs in a larger tub or enclosure with a radiant heat panel on the top of the larger enclosure controled by a tstat.

From what I have read, it is a bad idea for a heat lamp to be resting on a plastic surface. Perhaps I could just make a circle of heat resistant tape on top of the bin so that the heat lamp rests on top of a thick layer of tape rather than coming into direct contact with the plastic lid?

Here is my improved idea.

Problem 1: The metal heat lamp may melt the lid if it rests on top of it.
Solution: Have the heat lamp rest on a circular layer of insulating, heat resistant tape.

Problem 2: The heat radiating from the lamp may melt plastic that is directly in front of it, or plastic directly in front of the heat lamp may prevent optimal transfer of heat into the bin.
Solution: Replace the plastic under the lamp with mesh, or poke many holes into the plastic below the lamp.

Can anyone think of additional problems that I have not thought of, or if my solutions are insufficient?

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Originally Posted by West Coast Jungle

You could use a radiant heat panel. For quarantines I have placed tubs in a larger tub or enclosure with a radiant heat panel on the top of the larger enclosure controled by a tstat.

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Your dual-enclosure idea sounds good, but I think there must be a way to miniaturize that setup. Having an enclosure within an enclosure seems like a waste of space.

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Originally Posted by hamsterman

Do you think a regular reptile heat lamp would work if I poked a ton of small holes into the lid below the lamp? Or maybe just cut one big hole and put mesh over it?

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I have done this with a large rubbermaid tub, and it worked great. I cut a large round hole in the top
of the tub, and covered it with mesh.
I put the heat lamp (I used a CHE) on the mesh, and used a thermostat set at 80, with the thermostat probe
on the floor of the cool side. This keeps my ambient temp, perfect. The only drawback, is that the heat lamp
kills the humidity, but I just use a humid hide to solve that issue.

Ok I think I am going to proceed with installing a ceramic heat emitter. A space heater just doesn't make sense to me from an energy efficiency perspective. Why use a hundreds or even thousand watt space heater when you can have a 60 watt heat emitter?

This is my tub.

Would this heat lamp setup be sufficient for a tub of that size?

Heat emitter
Thermostat
Fixture or this one (not sure if that one will extend beyond the bulb)

I think I'd want as a low a wattage heat emitter as possible, because my plastic bin will be better insulated than a glass terrarium and require less energy input. I also want as little a chance of melting plastic as possible.