Tub heating

Im planning on setting up a tub for an subadult ball soon. I saw in one post that you shouldn't use UTH with platic tubs. But I see lots of rack setups with flexwatt, which is basically the same thing. so what should be used to heat a plastic tub?

A UTH is fine as long as it is on a thermostat or atleast a dimmer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rakk101

A UTH is fine as long as it is on a thermostat or atleast a dimmer.

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x2

Just make sure it's outside the tub as they pee en masse, and my recommendation is to tape the temp probe (if you're using a thermostat) right to the UTH rather than putting it in the tub.

JonV

It depends on the UTH--some state they should only be used with a glass tank, others are ok with acrylic or plastic. It's not really safe to use one not meant for anything but glass with a plastic bin. A thermostat will control the temperature, but if something goes wrong, it's a fire hazard.

any ideas on which ones are okay for plastics?? I always use thermostats so I should be okay then. and i like the idea about the probes being taped to the actual heating device.

One more heating question: how do people heat the plastic display cages? are they all using RHP?

The melting point for most plastics are pretty high. If you're heat tape got up to the temps needed to melt plastic I would worry about the health of your snake.

Most important thing is to have a thermostat controling the output to whatever heat element you are using.

If your thermostat fails, which is possible with even high quality ones, then you're up the creak no matter what UTH you're using.

For one snake it might not be worth having a back up thermostat but when your collection starts to grow most people will back up their proportional thermostats with a ranco or johnson on/off type thermostats. In the even that one thermostat fails the other will ensure that temps don't get into a dangerously high levels.

Zoo med heat pads and Exo Terra heat wave mats work fine. I keep mine on a light dimmer(about $13 from Home depot) and the temps stay between 89-94 which won't melt a tub.

you can use ultratherms safely under plastic.

i used them under plastic tubs (w/ a t-stat), for close to 2 yrs, worked great for me when I only had 3 snakes. but i have since switched to flex as I built 2 racks that I'm planning on filling up someday.... lol

It woulda cost out the wazoo to do 2 racks using ultratherms. but if it wasn't for the price, that's what I would of used. they're very safe and double coated in plastic so there's less chance of damaging the mat when you slide the tubs over them, over & over & over again. which means less of a chance of fires.

i'm still holding onto the 3 that I have, I'm planning on using them when I need to set up quarantine tubs for newbies as far away from my healthy snakes as my home will allow lol.