Moving from 20L to larger habitat- logistics and heat quest?

Hello all-

You were all so helpful when we got our first ball python yearling last year. We'd set up the glass tank following the sticky instructions at the top of the forum, with 11" flexwatt and a ranco Tstat on the warm side, and a zoomed UTH and rheostat on the cool side.

Well, Bambi has been eating and shedding very well, and has grown from 2.5 feet to 4.5 feet and can't even fit in her hides any more! They end up perched on top of her like a turtle's shell- pretty funny, but I guess she doesn't think so. I made some bigger hides but there will no room for anything else in the tank if I put them in now.

I've been building a new wood cage for her following The Herper's Toolbox instructions and Blue Apple Paste's also. It's 36" x 18" x 14" high. It will have vents at the top of each end that can be covered if humidity is too low.

My questions are....
1. How much flexwatt would be okay? The room she is kept in is usually around 72 degrees. Will my old flexwatt (12" x 11") and zoomed UTH setup be sufficient for this new cage? (They will be inside the cage, on the floor, with a full sheet of vinyl flooring over). Or will I need more flexwatt? I was hoping that the wood cage would be easier to keep heated than the glass tank.

2. I don't want to go out and buy a new Tstat just to regulate temps until we get the snake moved to her new digs. Could we use a heat pack and just keep her in a small tub for a day until everything is stabilized?

Thanks in advance!

I use 1 piece of 11'' flexwatt per 4x2 tub so you should be good with that. I do have another flexwatt on the cool side to keep it up around 80 but my ambient temps are around 78 so I plan on removing those when I build my next set of cages. I pics of my custom cages in my gallery if you want to check them out. I did pretty much the same thing with the vinyl. I wouldnt move the thermostat until the cage is 100% done and then it should only take you a couple hours to get em where they need to be so a hear pack should work fine until you get it rockin... Make sure you post some pics when your done!

Thanks- that eases my mind!:)

Have you considered a radient heat panel for the top of the enclosure? Or is there no room for one? I just dont like to push flexwatt over 100 if i can help it, and radient heat panels work so well.

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

Have you considered a radient heat panel for the top of the enclosure? Or is there no room for one? I just dont like to push flexwatt over 100 if i can help it, and radient heat panels work so well.

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Wouldn't that require another Tstat and a whole lot of tweaking(because I'm not familiar with it)? I want to be able to move her into the new setup in the least amount of time with the least amount of new equipment as possible without causing her undue stress. I'd prefer not to switch over to a new way of heating, especially since we have hit on something that seems to agree
with her (good growth, feeding well).