PVC cage heat with UTH / Radiant Heat Panel or BOTH? Cool room.

I use an accurite digital thermometer...just had the probe over toward the back of the cage away from the RHP/warm spot, maybe 6" off the ground- it read 79F.

I feel comfortable with the accuracy of the readings I'm getting. It feels warm inside the cage, and even warmer under the RHP, and the thermometers says it's warm inside the enclosure away from where the RHP could actually directly heat something. The two snakes housed within the t8 are eating/doing fine. Finally, it's been chilly in my bedroom!! I love sleeping in a cold bedroom...upper 50's to low 60's is perfect!

It's too late tonight, but either tomorrow or over the weekend, I'll take some pictures of the enclosure and we'll see if things can become clearer.

I am very curious to hear what everybody with these types of cages does for ambient heat. The one thing I really do like about our glass tank is the fact we get the benefit of an infrared light for heat and for viewing. It dims when the temps get close to perfect because the Herpstat does such a great job, but for the most part we do get to see into the cage at night and the infrared waves do not disturb the snake like a white light would.

I really want a plastic cage but I want to hear from people that have tricks and ideas for heat. Kitedemon makes a lot of sense to me and I'm not convinced that a RHP and UTH would be the magic solution for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

Blue leds

something like this is what I have there are tons of them on ebay.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/New-Aquarium-...ht_6444wt_1114

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I'm having a hard time believing that these will do a good job of heating an enclosure, but it would be a pretty painless solution. Any idea if the blue light bothers the snake at night? Would you be able to use these lights effectively as a heating device with a HerpStat?

Im guessing its the ballast giving off the heat and not the LEDs. If you feel it's too bright, I'm sure you could tape off the light..? And how do you attach the light to the cage?

Good discussion, keep it up!

Also I understand that the RHP works the same as the UTH, with radiant heat. With that said it seems like if you put 40 or 80 watts worth of flexwatt in the top of you cage, the ambient temps would have to go up.

Where are Adam and Jamie from mythbusters?

It is the electronics I think for sure. Ballast I used that term but maybe transformer is more correct not that it matters much. No pythons don't see blue light well there is an article that describes the eye sight in depth of royals. They don't see blues or UV well at all and see yellows and reds (orange by default) really well. Clearly as we all know they hunt by IR seeing red is quite obvious. I actually have altered the leds to make them dimmer (sanded the plastic and pulled the tube apart and slid a bit of paper into it to diffuse and dim the light down.

Yes excellent discussion!! Kitedemon, am I way off in having an infrared light in our tank? I guess at this point with perfect sheds, temp and feeding, up until the fall weather and light patterns hit I thought we were spot on. The tank is always lit up to some extent in the cooler weather. Summer is a different story unless we have to use the AC, but I thought our infrared light was the way to go. I can't say I'd change much as we've had such a good go so far. I looked at some herpetology articles on eye sight of Royals and may have even linked it here hope I am not stressing the animal with our setup. Nothing says we are as far as behavior, feeding and shedding.

Ultimately when I end up with one of these plastic cages it will be for a Colombian boa. I am trying to get things set for housing that type of snake. Differences don't seem extreme between the two which is good.

I feel pretty good about our current setup, actually really good. But when we start talking about PVC type cages and boas, I'm not at all sure what the best formula is.

When trying to keep costs down, and I don't mean skimping, I gets difficult to figure out what is needed, and what is not worth it at all.

What do most folks with BCI or BCC boas do with their plastic enclosures in areas where there are cold seasons?

http://images56.fotki.com/v1602/phot...1/blue2-vi.jpgHosted on Fotki

Attaching it depends on the enclosure this one is hot glued I have brackets that were screwed in place some are zip tied. Which ever works.
http://images58.fotki.com/v154/photo...ledtemp-vi.jpgHosted on Fotki

33.1ºC is 91.6ºF I scanned about and hit a 34.7ºC as well that is 94.5ºF.

As promised, a picture. This is the right side portion of the t8. The divider of the t8 is the black wall to the left and the flexwatt runs directly below it. The 40w RHP is on the ceiling in the foreground (its really centered on the ceiling from front to back- optical illusion at work here), just to the right of the divider. The accurite probe was placed into the terra cotta hide(probably 4-5" off the ground) on the cold side maybe 40 minutes before this picture was taken. It's reading 81F...room temp 62F. If anyone has a better way of measuring ambients, let me know.

For the record, this is the first time I have EVER used RHPs, Flexwatt, or PVC caging. Historically, I've always used either aquariums or DIY wooden cages heated with various heat producing bulbs or CHEs...heat, humidity, and maintenance were always big issues. Getting back into the hobby recently, I wanted a set-up that was more user friendly...I've had this one up and running for less then a month but it seems to be working as planned.
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9277/dscf1275g.jpg

How hard is it to install the RHP? I know it's just a couple of screws but do they go through the cage?