Herpstat or rheostat?

By the way it ate yesterday his first frozen after i bought him.. It wouldnt take it at first but my girl was persistent and started going around the snake with the mouse until it striked. I didnt support that, it probably just took it out of frustration of the mouse touching it too much. It didnt regurgitated it though

Those herpstats are the bees knees. Very consistent. Also in the beginning when I was trying to get my new guy to switch from mice to rats, I had to do a little dance with them. Shaking, moving left to right, and near to far. Not necessarily poking him but trying to mimic motion. I’m not sure if it helped or just made me feel better he took it. Now a couple months later he’s very food motivated.

As has been said, your snake room environment will determine whether a rheostat is a viable option for your BP.

A rheostat will provide CONSTANT HEAT. How much heat is determined by where you set the rheostat. A thermostat will provide VARIABLE HEAT depending upon the environment (as read by the thermostat sensor);

If your room temperature is constant throughout the day, a rheostat is a viable option. If your room temperature varies throughout the day, a rheostat may work but the temperature in your viv will vary along with your room temperature.

You need to decide how much variability in temperature you will tolerate in your viv. If your room temperature varies more than that, you must get a thermostat. If your room temperature varies less than that, you can go either way.

P.S. There is a reason why we use thermostats in our home and auto heating/cooling systems. They are the best way to provide a consistent temperature.

As a person who uses rheostats, I would highly recommend a thermostat. I keep my snakes in my room, even my venomous. One day when I was off it just so happened that my house thermostat failed(house was built brand new in 2011). This caused it to get really hot, so I had to turn off all my heating for the snakes. Had I been at work, it could of very well got hot enough to kill my snakes. Of course I live in Louisiana where the summers get really hot, but all in all, I would use a thermostat. Since that I have switched to a Herpstat 6. I will still use a rheostat for my lighting to keep it dimmed, but for anything heating related, I wouldn't do it.

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Originally Posted by Neal

As a person who uses rheostats, I would highly recommend a thermostat. I keep my snakes in my room, even my venomous. One day when I was off it just so happened that my house thermostat failed(house was built brand new in 2011). This caused it to get really hot, so I had to turn off all my heating for the snakes. Had I been at work, it could of very well got hot enough to kill my snakes. Of course I live in Louisiana where the summers get really hot, but all in all, I would use a thermostat. Since that I have switched to a Herpstat 6. I will still use a rheostat for my lighting to keep it dimmed, but for anything heating related, I wouldn't do it.

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Is the herpstat EZ2 lifetime as much as the snake’s?

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

...a dimmer will NOT last as long as a reliable thermostat, especially anything NON Herpstat. i don't have any evidence of this LOL but....

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To the OP:
Rheostats (aka dimmer, aka lamp dimmer) are something I DO know about, I've used them extensively for 30+ years, I can't recall many failures & I still use them, to control overhead lights & Flexwatt heat tapes for my snakes (which are mostly colubrids). While thermostats are preferable in many ways, they too CAN fail. If one has the time & is vigilant, a rheostat is far cheaper & may work just fine...much depends on your set up, and YOU. But rheostats take some getting used to...it's basically a rotary dial with no markings to indicate a specific temperature. (*the few rheos that I can recall failing me just failed to come on at all, likely due to a loose connection, seeing as I've moved several times over the years.) If you like to wire up your own, any hardware store sells them, or you can get the kind already installed in an extension cord, or the kind you install yourself on your own cord. I've used all kinds & wired up my own Flexwatt tapes. And I've never come close to injuring a snake with excessive heat, but I also do NOT keep the kinds (like BPs) that need higher temps where it pays to be more exact.

If you're using a rheostat with a light, you can SEE the output, but not so with a CHE, nor for that matter with a heat tape. What I do is monitor the temperature produced & put a few markings on the rheostat dial for my reference. You can really burn yourself (or start a fire) with a CHE that's running full-blast, so be aware of that. Flexwatt heat tape that's properly installed (vented as per instructions) does NOT get that hot and bear in mind that I'm using ONLY glass tanks...they do not melt or warp the way plastics can. Also, the heat tape is only under a fairly small portion of the cage floor.

Safety first, always. If you need precise temperature controls, by all means use a quality thermostat. But if your experienced source suggested a rheostat for use on your CHE, the reason he gave makes sense to me. I can't speak for sure about the CHE since I don't use them, but the more times you turn a regular light bulb on & off, the faster it does seem to fail. But I think there's also 2 kinds of thermostats? the proportional kind, and the on-off kind?

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Originally Posted by YounGod

Is the herpstat EZ2 lifetime as much as the snake’s?

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I have no experience with the Herpstat EZ series, but if it's a herpstat I'm guessing it's a quality product. I've ran Herpstat 1's and now I have a Herpstat 6.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

To the OP:
Rheostats (aka dimmer, aka lamp dimmer) are something I DO know about, I've used them extensively for 30+ years, I can't recall many failures & I still use them, to control overhead lights & Flexwatt heat tapes for my snakes (which are mostly colubrids). While thermostats are preferable in many ways, they too CAN fail. If one has the time & is vigilant, a rheostat is far cheaper & may work just fine...much depends on your set up, and YOU. But rheostats take some getting used to...it's basically a rotary dial with no markings to indicate a specific temperature. (*the few rheos that I can recall failing me just failed to come on at all, likely due to a loose connection, seeing as I've moved several times over the years.) If you like to wire up your own, any hardware store sells them, or you can get the kind already installed in an extension cord, or the kind you install yourself on your own cord. I've used all kinds & wired up my own Flexwatt tapes. And I've never come close to injuring a snake with excessive heat, but I also do NOT keep the kinds (like BPs) that need higher temps where it pays to be more exact.

If you're using a rheostat with a light, you can SEE the output, but not so with a CHE, nor for that matter with a heat tape. What I do is monitor the temperature produced & put a few markings on the rheostat dial for my reference. You can really burn yourself (or start a fire) with a CHE that's running full-blast, so be aware of that. Flexwatt heat tape that's properly installed (vented as per instructions) does NOT get that hot and bear in mind that I'm using ONLY glass tanks...they do not melt or warp the way plastics can. Also, the heat tape is only under a fairly small portion of the cage floor.

Safety first, always. If you need precise temperature controls, by all means use a quality thermostat. But if your experienced source suggested a rheostat for use on your CHE, the reason he gave makes sense to me. I can't speak for sure about the CHE since I don't use them, but the more times you turn a regular light bulb on & off, the faster it does seem to fail. But I think there's also 2 kinds of thermostats? the proportional kind, and the on-off kind?

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Rheostats have a higher failure rate than a quality thermostat. A rheostat you have so many other factors that can cause an issue it doesn't "work just as fine". If you spend money on a snake and want to skimp on the proper equipment, then people don't have any business owning a snake.

If a rheostat fails, in the cases I've noticed them failing, the device they were controlling went to full power, this can kill your snake. Let's not even mention that they have other factors that the rheostat can't adjust for. An air conditioning unit has at least 4 common ways to fail to keep the house cool(blower motor, compressor, thermostat, leaking). Those 4 ways if you're using a rheostat and it gets hot can kill or cause issues for the snake. Let's not mention wiring, or the breaker tripping. The fact is if you have a quality thermostat like a Herpstat or Vivarium Electronics then when that temp rises, it will lower the power, or shut off which won't kill or cause issues for the snake.

Also when a Herpstat or Vivarium Electronic thermostat fails, it doesn't go to 100% power. They have fail safes.

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Originally Posted by Neal

.... If you spend money on a snake and want to skimp on the proper equipment, then people don't have any business owning a snake.....

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I hesitated to respond to this question because I knew one of you would say this (& you're wrong & you don't know me-!) but that's why I qualified carefully
what I said. I'm busy & I'll leave it at that for now. I just felt that the information given was a bit one-sided...rheostats do have their uses. I would however
stay far away from the cheap brands I've seen in pet stores (can't remember specific brand, tried one ages ago), ironically they do seem to have issues, if
one can generalize from a single poor quality item (& for safety, one should).

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

I hesitated to respond to this question because I knew one of you would say this (& you're wrong & you don't know me-!) but that's why I qualified carefully
what I said. I'm busy & I'll leave it at that for now. I just felt that the information given was a bit one-sided...rheostats do have their uses. I would however
stay far away from the cheap brands I've seen in pet stores (can't remember specific brand, tried one ages ago), ironically they do seem to have issues, if
one can generalize from a single poor quality item (& for safety, one should).

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I actually did not say that beofre, but I will say it now. You're wrong. I wasn't calling you out, nor was I pointing the finger at you. I'm referring to new keepers who don't want to buy thermostats and run ceramic heat emitters or other types of heating that can get hot enough to kill and want to run a rheostat versus actually running a thermostat which is what those types of equipment are supposed to be ran on. Yes you running it on heat tape is a bad call, but I never called you out on that until now.

In the end, if a rheostat fails, all the ones that I've seen fail, get put at 100% power, and if you're using it for a heating device that can kill the snake. If it fails and somehow gets 0% power, then that's not going to kill the snake, but I've yet to see that happen. Herpstat and VE have fail safes, if something goes wrong, they cut power so your snake doesn't die. That's proper equipment. No matter how much you spend on a rheostat it can't account for outside variables like a thermostat can.

As I stated, it was summer time when my thermostat for my AC in my house broke. I had some stuff on rheostats but some stuff on a thermostat. The snake room with all the heating quickly got into the 80's, now factor in the rheostats were set to the temp when the room is 72, that's an 8 degree difference in ambient temp. Now the rheostats are still going to put out the power, so that hotspot that you had set to say 90, is now 98 and it's going to steadily climb.

So yes, if you're using a rheostat for anything heat related, or if anybody is using that, it's a lack of having proper equipment.

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Originally Posted by Neal

... Yes you running it on heat tape is a bad call, but I never called you out on that until now....

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And you should work on your reading comprehension. There is more than one way to do things effectively, depending on what you are working with
and one's level of experience and personal involvement. The world is not "one size fits all". Have a nice day. :sunny: