Heating lamp vs. heating pad

Hello, everybody! I'm new here, and have a question. My little brother is getting a ball python on May 12th, and we have already bought the terrarium and the stand for it. Yesterday he bought a "starter kit" which had a bag of substrate, a water dish, a hiding place, a thermometer, and a heating pad. I was wondering, is a heating pad a significant source of heat for a 20 gallon terrarium, or would we be better off with a heating lamp? Thanks for any help you can provide. :D

I think I'm familiar with that particular kit... and yes... it will work fine.. but probably will need a CHE (ceramic heat emiter) along with the heat pad. Those heat pads are extremely small (and most of the time short lived)... keep an eye on it, and you may want to wire a thermostat or rheostat to it to control it as it gets a tad on the warm side for BPs. You'll also need a second hide... there should be one on the cool side, and one on the warm side... preferably identical hides so that it doesn't favor one hide over the other... (sacrificing comfort/security for warmth, visa-versa).


Good luck on the new snakey!

The heating pad will need to be controlled with some type of thermostat or dimmer. Another suggestion would be to have a digital thermometer and hygrometer. The indoor/outdoor thermometers in your local chain store work great. The dials and strips that usually accompany that type of package, can be extremely inaccurate.

which cermaic heat emiters are the best??

Here is my .02 cents! Ceramic heat emmiters not a good source of constint heat for a Ball. Useing a ceramic or bulb, set up on a timer to get a basking spot of 90 degrees tho is a good idea just make sure that they are not placed over a hide! Balls get there heat from there bellys. When in his hide how is the substrate going to heat up to a degree that is optimal, 88 to 90f. If you place the heat emitter over his hide or a heat lamp for that matter it turns it into a oven! I do not know what kind of heat pad came with your kit but if it is a zoo-med or one of the other popular brands you should be just fine with it! As tigerlilly said you will need to buy a good quality thermostat or a dimmer switch! You can buy a Lamp Dimmer switch that comes all wired for around 10 dollars at home depot or lowes! All you do is plug it into the power strip and then plug your UTH into the plug that is on the dimmer switch and you can control the amount of power being used to run the UTH.
Definitly some way to measure the humidity is a must aswell. When measuring temps you want to measure the temperature on the substrate. Like i said before that is where balls get there heat from.
There are lots and lots of caresheets out there aswell but you probablly alraedy know that! lol

Good luck and welcome!! :)

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Originally Posted by Swizzle

which cermaic heat emiters are the best??

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ZooMed or Exo-terra

I do not have a heating pad - is it absolutely necessary? I currently have a sun glo 100 watt bulb that I am using during the day and a 50 watt red heat emitter bulb for the evening hours. Should this be sufficient? The daytime temperature is around 91 degrees (in one part of the aquarium). the nightitme temperature is about 85 degrees. Am I doing this right. I know that I need to get a
humidiity guage to make sure it is humid enough. Any thoughts out there?