Do you need a thermostat for a Zoo-Med UTH?

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Originally Posted by BOWSER11788

not to hi-jack thread, but my zoo-med- gets my 20 longs hide only to like 89 degrees, wonder why

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Where are you measuring your temps and what kind of thermometer are you using?

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Originally Posted by stlsteelersfan

I have a repti 500 on the UTH on the outside. and I have a ACCURATE digital thermometer. With the probe under aspen just above glass bottom at the edge of the hide in warm area. It shows a temp of 99-102 just above pad. Put also have a digital laser temp gun and it shows the the aspen at hide edge and just inside hide at 78-81. why is temp so diffeerent? it is 74-76 in cool side and that temp is what I get with digital laser temp gun. what am I doing wrong

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Originally Posted by BOWSER11788

not to hi-jack thread, but my zoo-med- gets my 20 longs hide only to like 89 degrees, wonder why

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Probably too much substrate on the warm side. If you are using aspen, wood or somethining like that then more than likely your snake will burrow down to find the temp it wants.
If you are using paper towels, news paper or whatever then you may need to adjust how many layers you have down...

Also, you may need to insulate your tank. If you need suggestions on how to do that, I would start a new thread...



Rob

I think the big deal about those UTH is that in most cases it goes right on the glass. If the reptile can get to the glass right above it there may be problems. I cut a piece of cardboard that snuggly fits half the tank and put it on the glass over the heat pad for my blue tongue skink. Above the cardboard it is maybe 80 degrees - he also gets a heat lamp during the day that takes the warm side over 90.

Stubby hasn't tried to get under the cardboard, but we watch him just in case....

they definitely get too hot, i have 2 10-20 gallon size and i had them plugged in without any thermostat for a couple hours, and when i checked the temp on the hot side it was 112 deg. with my temp gun.


Lots of people say different things, ive seen a youtube from Ralph Davis and he sets up a 10 gallon tank with one of these and he says "dont worry about these, you dont need a thermostat, just leave it on all the time, it doesnt get too hot".


Ralph probably knows more about BP's than anyone else, but i know 112 is very hot, esp if the snake burrows down past the substrate and lays directly on the glass. You're just asking for trouble. Would i buy a $140 Helix for these, probably not, but at least a cheapo little zoo med thermostat of rheostat should work fine.

i have some real qualms about the Zoo-Med UTH's, and ANY UTH's widely available in pet stores. Here's an email exchange i had with Zoo-Med:

Hi there,

I am just emailing as a concerned customer. Regarding your Repti-therm Under Tank Heaters, I use them to heat both of my corn snake tanks, as well as my leopard geckos tank. Both the corn snake tanks are regulated using a Herpstat. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that product, but it is a proportional thermostat, which regulates the temperature of the UTH within approximately 1 degree. With my leopard gecko's UTH, i regulate it with a Zoo Med Repti-Temp 500R, which, as you know, is an on/off thermostat. Obviously it's not as accurate as a proportional thermostat, but it still does the job quite fine, i must say, at a reasonable price, compared to the Herpstat Proportional Thermostat, which cost upwards of $100 Canadian. Now onto the concern, i bought the biggest UTH to use with one of my snakes, and realized later that it was much too big, and i had to buy a smaller one. No big deal, i figured i would find a use for it somewhere down the line, which i did. When my boyfriend and I's first clutch of corn snake eggs began hatching, we were waiting on a shipment of flexwatt. We didn't have an alternative heating method for the new hatchlings, but i DID have the large Zoo Med UTH. SO i plugged it in, and waited about an hour. I came back from the grocery store, only to find that the UTH was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the plastic was wavy and melted. MUCH hotter than ANY animal would ever require. In fact, it would BURN any animal that were to lay on glass heated with a Zoo Med UTH. So, i'm pretty disappointed that these heat mats are virtually unusable without being regulated.

Here's a quesion for you guys; howcome you don't make the UTH's with the Repti-Temp 500R's BUILT IN to them, and charge a higher price, or better yet, include a Rheostat (dimmer switch) that is pre-wired into the UTH? Because as we all know, they can get much too hot for any of our beloved pets. And as we also know, a lot of the people who we sell these beloved animals to, are (how shall i put it...) lacking smarts to actually BE a responsible pet owner, who a) does research BEFORE HAND about the animal they may purchase b) doesn't buy an animal (who, may live many, many years) on a whim, or a sense that if they own such an animal, it will make them "cool and c) practices proper husbandry to actually give these animals the enclose that they need to live properly. Basically what i'm saying, is we DO carry these UTH's in my store, but, i would feel much more secure about carrying and selling your product if you made it "fool proof," so to speak. Because i DO like the UTH's when regulated with a proper thermostat, but unfortunatley most people are not willing to fork out that amount of money, nor are they willing to go to the hardware store, fork out $7 for a dimming switch, and then turn on their computer, load up an internet browser, and google how to DIY wire a dimming switch.

So please, pretty please, for the love of our animals...could you PLEASE include a built-in rheostat in future models of your Zoo-Med Repti-Therm Under Tank Heaters?

Thanks for your time and consideration,
Katia *******

and here is their response:

Dear Katia,

Thank you for contacting us. I will forward your message to our product development team for their consideration. I do want to warn you however about using the under tank heater while it is not attached to a glass terrarium. This heater is designed to distribute heat through glass. If it is not attached to glass, the temperature reading you get is most likely not accurate as the heat is not being transferred away from the heater properly. The normal operating temperature of the heater is between 95 and 105 degrees but this usually produces a 2 – 10 degree temperature increase inside of a tank. We often recommend that the heater be used with a thermostat or rheostat for many applications, but in many applications these temperature controlling devices are unnecessary because of the low wattage of the heater. I would like to thank you for your time and your input and I will pass your concerns along. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Kind Regards,

A***** **********
Customer Service
Zoo Med Labs, Inc.
3650 Sacramento Dr.
San Luis Obispo CA 93401
Toll Free 888-496-6633
Fax 805-542-9295

i like how, in the bolded section of the response, it clearly says "We often recommend that the heater be used with a thermostat or rheostat for many applications" yet NOWHERE in the instructions of a brand new Zoo Med UTH does it even make MENTION of a heat regulating device.

I GIVE UP!

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Originally Posted by katia

i like how, in the bolded section of the response, it clearly says "We often recommend that the heater be used with a thermostat or rheostat for many applications" yet NOWHERE in the instructions of a brand new Zoo Med UTH does it even make MENTION of a heat regulating device.

I GIVE UP!

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Yeah those instructions really through me off because initially I wasn't planning on getting any kind of thermostat or anything... but you guys let me know that these people are a bunch of good-for-nothing liars. :P

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Originally Posted by pvdgod

they definitely get too hot, i have 2 10-20 gallon size and i had them plugged in without any thermostat for a couple hours, and when i checked the temp on the hot side it was 112 deg. with my temp gun.

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Just the other day I had to take my snakes out of the enclosure because the probe popped off of the bottom of a UTH (10g-20g UTH) and the thermostat couldn't control the temps and in the top tub the temperatures were 124F (measured with digital thermometer with probe). I'm glad I got them out and let them cool down a bit. For some reason, aluminum tape works so horribly for me..

I just got one of the Zoo-Med UTHs for my ball python two days ago. I have a 10-20 gallon on a 10 gallon tank. This thing sat at 89 degrees for two days and i go in there today and in about 2 hours time it had heated up to 98! This thing is not that great. my poor snake. I'm not really willing to pay 40 dollars to control a heater that only costs 25. I'm going to try a couple different things first, but they won't help with temp. spikes like that. I will never buy one of these again.

zoo-med is a joke, plain and simple.
Their uth's are over priced crap, their thermostats suck, their thermometers are junk.
I guess if you want a water bowl they are ok, LOL.

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Originally Posted by NormanSnake

I just got one of the Zoo-Med UTHs for my ball python two days ago. I have a 10-20 gallon on a 10 gallon tank. This thing sat at 89 degrees for two days and i go in there today and in about 2 hours time it had heated up to 98! This thing is not that great. my poor snake. I'm not really willing to pay 40 dollars to control a heater that only costs 25. I'm going to try a couple different things first, but they won't help with temp. spikes like that. I will never buy one of these again.

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I use Zoo-Med UTHs for all my tanks and never have problems with temperature fluctuations...but that's because all of mine are run on Thermostats. ;) By the way, the Hydrofarm thermostat on Amazon is only like $25 dollars. Which happens to be what you paid for the UTH...soo...I'd suggest getting one of those. They have worked very well for me. :gj: