Anyone using ambient heat only successfully?

Hey Everyone,

I know this topic has been discussed previously, but I wanted to get a consensus to see if people are successfully implicating this practice into their home collections. With my new oil heater I have been able to dial in ambient temps hovering around 80-82 degrees in my snake room. I checked temps in all parts of the room and it stays pretty consistent throughout. Im now seeing that with my ambient temps in the 82 deg range, rather than in the mid to high 70s as they were previously, all my snakes are using their hot spots far less often.

Im wondering if it is still really necessary to keep utilizing the UTHs providing hot spots, and just switch over to ambient temps only. I know that this technique is being used by experts as of now, but if I am able to keep the ambient temps up, why wouldn't it also work for me?

Let me know if anyone else has had success themselves doing this. The species I am currently keeping are boas, burms, retics, bps.

I am using both but not too much variant.
My oil filled keeps the room between 80 to 82 degrees and all my THG is running about 85 to 87 degrees.
I don't know what would be more cost effective but I know in another month I wont need the oil filled here in Texas.

Have you ever experimented with using just the oil heater and no heat tape?

I really want to be able to do this someday. I feel like it would be so much easier and cost effective to be able to build cages/racks without having to worry about heat tape/RHPs/thermostats, and just have one central heat source that I can control for all the animals in the room.

I am wondering the same things as well as would it be beneficial to have a night drop and what would happen to breeding females when they are in cycle and seeking either hot or cold?

There's a thread on here that contains a link to a discussion of this concept by renowned herpers. I will have to look through posts and find it. Essentially the gist of the discussion was that the sole purpose of using all the available heating elements we have at our disposal is to help the snake achieve the correct body temperature of around 81-83 degrees I believe. The person interviewed maintains that all normal physiological functioning of the reptile can proceed at the previously stated temps. Giving hot spots around 90 degrees essentially acts as a heat sink that the animal can go on and off of in order to pull heat from, and achieve the desired temperature. Therefore, if you can maintain the entire reptile room at the correct temperature, there is no need for the animal to need to choose between warmer or colders areas of the cage, as they are constantly at the correct physiological temp.

With regards to breeding I feel like it would work out well, and might not necessitate dropping temps to induce breeding. I spoke with people from Boaphile many years ago, and they claimed that all their in house breeding boas are kept at a constant 82 degrees, and are obviously flourishing and breeding.

I think I am going to try it after my females lay this season with the exception of my quarantine tubs which are not in the same room anyway. Would sure make things a little more simple and simpler is always better.

I use only RHPs and CHEs in my cages. I don't use UTH as I personally don't trust them. Sure with a good T-stat they are fine but if the T-stat goes fritz, then you can have a cooked snake. With a T-stat fritz on a RHP or CHE, the snake will probably be warm but he/she can move to the cool side and doesn't run any chance of being burned. That being said, I've never had an issue with only ambient heat.

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

I use only RHPs and CHEs in my cages. I don't use UTH as I personally don't trust them. Sure with a good T-stat they are fine but if the T-stat goes fritz, then you can have a cooked snake. With a T-stat fritz on a RHP or CHE, the snake will probably be warm but he/she can move to the cool side and doesn't run any chance of being burned. That being said, I've never had an issue with only ambient heat.

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What temps are your RHPs and CHEs running at in your cages? I guess heating a whole room to the correct ambient temp would be the same as getting an enclosure to the correct ambient temps with a RHP.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

What temps are your RHPs and CHEs running at in your cages? I guess heating a whole room to the correct ambient temp would be the same as getting an enclosure to the correct ambient temps with a RHP.

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Not exactly. Heating half an enclosure with a CHE, or RHP will still leave a cooler side for your animal to properly thermoregulate it's self. Heating an entire room leaves the entire enclosure at one temp.


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Well I was just saying theoretically if you could use a rhp to get a constant even temp in the cage