a few questions before i start my first incubator

so after looking for an incubator that would give the kind of visability i want ive decided to make one from a 5 gallon aquarium. im going to cut a peice of plexie glass to fit on the top and put a knob and hinges on it then use a uth with a herp stat or helix. now my question is which thermostat should i go with? and how long is the probe that will go in it? will it fit in the tank? this thing is going in the bed room and i want it to look good.

A 5-gallon aquarium seems rather small. How are you going to fit your egg box in it? Glass isn't very insulative - your temps may easily rise and fall without better insulation. I would at least consider adding some kind of foam panels to the sides of the tank or to research a better way all together to build your incubator.

well i figured a good heater and thermostat could keep the temps steady. and i wasnt going to use an egg box, the tank would hold the eggs

Sorry to burst your bubble about the heat source and stat keeping steady temps... but they won't. Trust me. Unless you surround the glass with thick foam board, thus negating your reasons for using a tank, those temps will still fluctuate a bit too much for incubation. That, or you would have to keep the tank in a room where the temps were high and absolutely the same all the time.

If you really want a visible incubator, try a camping cooler with holes sawed out and plexi windows. Or, if you have the luck or the money, you could convert a wine cooler (found or bought).

Or you could get a completely enclosed incubator and use a camera attached to you computer or TV to watch. They make them pretty small now and they even have low light cameras!

http://www.eyehit.com/degei/supportf.../inc/index.htm

wow... a bit of work went into that cooler. what is the most popular ready to go incubator for purchase???

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Originally Posted by mcavana

wow... a bit of work went into that cooler. what is the most popular ready to go incubator for purchase???

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Probably Nature Spirits Incubator

http://nsreptiles.com/

ok well im just gonna build the thing and see how good it holds the temps. is there any thermometer i can get a walmart or somewhere that will show high and low temp? so if i leave it in there for 24 hours it will show me how high it got and how low?

here is what we used be for we built a walk in
[IMG]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t...ncubator_2.jpg[/IMG]