How to heat the air inside of a plastic tub

Actually maybe I can fix the heating situation by getting a larger UTH.

My current UTH is only enough to heat the hot spot and nothing else. I am aiming for something that can raise the air temp from 70 degrees outside the tub to 75 degrees inside.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002AQCKA

So if I upgraded to a large one like this do you think it would be enough?
http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-Med-ReptiT.../dp/B0002AQCLO

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Originally Posted by hamsterman

Ok I think I am going to proceed with installing a ceramic heat emitter. A space heater just doesn't make sense to me from an energy efficiency perspective. Why use a hundreds or even thousand watt space heater when you can have a 60 watt heat emitter?

This is my tub.

The issue I see with using a heat lamp with that tub is, that tub isn't very tall. The snake could easily touch the mesh, and possibly get burned. The tub I used with the heat lamp, is like 16 inches tall.


Would this heat lamp setup be sufficient for a tub of that size?

That CHE, and that lamp would work fine.

Heat emitter
Thermostat
Fixture or this one (not sure if that one will extend beyond the bulb)

I think I'd want as a low a wattage heat emitter as possible, because my plastic bin will be better insulated than a glass terrarium and require less energy input. I also want as little a chance of melting plastic as possible.

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Quote:

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The issue I see with using a heat lamp with that tub is, that tub isn't very tall. The snake could easily touch the mesh, and possibly get burned. The tub I used with the heat lamp, is like 16 inches tall.

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Do you know of a kind of mesh I could get that isn't made of metal so it won't heat up too much? Or maybe I could try the approach of a lattice of holes in the plastic lid?

what about a 11" peice of flex watt( I really dislike those zoo med heat pads) then wrap a towl around the cool side to kind of insulate it; I had a open rack with 41qt tubs and used an old woven quilt to cover the cool side and it held heat quite well,my house was set to 75 and it kept it in the 80 degree range fluctuating +- a couple degrees.

You could try to insulate it by spraying Great stuff on the outside of the cool end to insulate it, problem is you need to have another temp container to put him in while the stuff cures. I have not tried this but I was playing around with the idea, I just don't have the need to do this anymore.

My two cents:

I have recently dealt with a similar dilemma as my snake room (really my den) stays at 65 or less during the winter, and around 70 ish during the summer. I recently tried a space heater, but low and behold a) the heat doesn't go where we want it, and b) it brought my humidity down considerably because it is a very dry heat.

So I am no sticking with only my original plan, and snakes always have, and still do eat, shed and attempt to breed just fine.

I covered my flex watt with a thin piece of sheet metal about 2x as large (surface area wise) as the FW. I secured with aluminum tape on all 4 sides. Since metal conducts heat, the metal acts as a thin (and admittedly inefficient) radiator, spreading the FW heat beyond the normal coverage area of the FW. You must fiddle with the T stat a bit, but during the coolest days, the coolest end of my tubs is 72-75. As you move closer to the heat source, and the sheet metal actually creates a gradient.

So, The warm spot of my tubs is say 92 right over the heat tape (and sheet metal). The middle section of the tub is 80 ish, and the far end (where there is no sheet metal) is 72. Guess what. in the winter the snakes spend very little time on the coolest side, but there is enough of a gradient for them to keep themselves around 85 no matter when I use temp gun! They are pretty good and figuring it out I guess. This solution has worked for me.