Belly heat

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

This you are correct on.
Cant run a RHP in a rack.

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Thanks for stating the obvious. Last time I checked, we were talking about PVC cages. Wow, that was genius levels of information.

That is good that your ambient are a couple of degrees over a scary low. Yes clearly your ambient is 76-7. It is also clear orginally you stated your ambient was 82. Which was influenced by the RHP, or it would not be changing. Unless you want to argue that the air inside the enclosure is stratified like it does in large spaces and that you are not getting convection currents, defining the laws of thermodynamics. I have said many times and most of the manufacturers back it up RHP work fine in heated rooms. This is because they don't alter the air temp substantially. The original claim you made was the air was 82ºF that is a 12ºF lift now it is only half this.

If you were to add a fluorescent light you would likely see a much larger lift in ambients I get 10-15ºF over the room and in the summer I must shut them down as they are too warm. I hate seeing wild claims that cannot be backed up by evidence. +12ºF over the room +20ºF over the room even +30ºF over the room. Then a little poking it comes down to a reasonable 5-7ºF so 2 maybe 3 more degrees from a UTH.

I use them I look after many enclosures with them and most of those are in warm rooms and no issues with over heating. I have had this same discussion over and over it is funny how many claim things that cannot be. Like a stable hot spot temp and a stable ambient temp with a variable room temp. One heater cannot have different outputs at the same time a radiant heat unrelated to its convection heat, yet this is the claim many have made, constants hot spot and as much as 20ºF in ambients season to season. Forgive me but I don't want to watch yet another why is my snake stopped eating, It has RI, It has RI again, it is losing weight, my poor snake died series of threads again. All of which can be traced back to the same root not actually measuring ambient air temps, but the probe surface temp.

The question remains did you see a huge change in the humidity when you switched?

I don't know why people over complicate things it is super easy UTH, probe, and a liner FL tube and a LED tube, timer, done. During the coolest times, FL and led for 12 hours and led over night. When the ambient air temps start an upward trend (74-85 is a huge range) drop the led during the day 12/12 as it gets warmer reduce the FL times until it is off altogether.

Cheap, easy and efficient. I need to make 4-5 timer changes a year.

RHP are perfectly suited for arboreal set ups they heat the upper perches perfectly create a side to side gradient and the floor and lower perches are cooler. It is the perfect set up. Using them to floor temps, is in efficient, unless you have a animal that naturally basks pointless. Nocturnal snakes don't bask why simulate the sun with a non basking nocturnal animal? Why not simulate the warmed ground after the sun has set?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skeletor

Thanks for stating the obvious. Last time I checked, we were talking about PVC cages. Wow, that was genius levels of information.

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It was a general statement on your post I quoted.
As far as a genius level....... SMH
Must be something in the water??

Fascinating discussion. For my snakes I have always used UTH. I always thought radiant heat panels were fine to use, I've never heard of them being attributed to RIs and death.

My leopard gecko in in a PVC cage (another nocturnal belly heat needing reptile). I use ceramic tile in her enclosure. Even without a thermostat I could not get the bottom to heat up more than 80. I added a CHB and that helped but barely and only in a specific spot. Recently I switched to a RHP. It's been perfect! It gets the belly heat she needs and seems to heat up the whole enclosure to where it needs to be. I stacked some rocks so she can climb closer if needed and I put the prob on the top rock. It reads 90 while the lower rocks are 85. The cool side is now 72-75. She has tons of various spots of hot and cool.

What works for some may not work for others. If a heat panel is working just fine for a ball set up then why would one need to change to a UTH?

The RHP is not at fault, the keepers were, as always. It was situation born of ignorance as it often is. The keeper was only measuring surface temps and never measuring air temps. The best example I have was in my area I arrived to take the snake to the vet, (keeper had no car) I found a RHP working perfectly well a hot spot of 90ºF and a ambient air temp of 63ºF. The keeper like many many others did not understand that an RHP principally heats objects. The 'ambient' air temp was not being measured correctly, it was a surface temp of the probe after the RHP warmed it. They have their uses in a situation where a UTH cannot heat through the floor (like a wooden enclosure) they are likely the best option.

They don't add massive amounts to air temps we just saw when it is shielded from the RHP output is was +6ºF over the room, enough in that case, but the original claim was for 15ºF almost twice. The OP is using a UTH and has temps in hand slightly low, the suggestion was that an RHP was better. But I will not accept it is better, it is nearly different, and basically the same for terrestrial set ups. I would suggest that sticking a UTH to the ceiling be a poor mans RHP as the guts of them that is all they are anyway. They are not a different heater at all just a different placement of an old heat system.

It they consistently heated +15ºF over the room temp people would never use them for things like green trees because in a normal room they would add too much to the ambient air temps, in fact they are the choice and what I advocate for GTP myself speaks loudly to them not adding huge amounts to air temps. Less than ten degrees and often around 5º.

I was getting 77 then it went to 78 in the far far corner of my cage blocking the probe from getting IR from the RHP. My first readings in the middle of my cage were 82 but I never blocked the probe from getting IR. do you feel that's a good test ? I figure if I get 77-78 far corner, the RHP is doing ok or better mid cage and hot side. I spoke to Reptile Basics, they said this is their preferred way of heating a cage. My snake ate again another week later. This was yesterday. Cool side temps went up, it got warm outside. Snake spent the night on the cool side it seems. Hmmm. Well I'll try and block the probe mid cage and see what temps I get. I know blocking the probe is like being in the shade from sunlight. The probe reading should only be reading air temps if it's shaded from the IR of the RHP.

The OP got his answer. All I did was claim I went from UTh to RHP and I'm getting good results. He doesn't have to purchase anything, do anything I do etc. I hijacked his post since I just got rid of my UTH, just wanted to see what others thought of this method. What I took from it..... Watch the ambient air temps. So that's what I'm doing. Thanks all.

Yes that is spot on. The probe shaded (even temporally by white paper) will read air temps. If it is too close to the floor it becomes influenced by that too. This is the issue of RHP misunderstanding, the keeper not ever measuring the air temp and expecting the probed thermometer to be correct with the air when it has direct IR on its surface. Ambient air temps should not be influenced directly by a heater. Remember cheap probed thermometers need time to change and stabilize too. Up to 45 min.

Skeletor if you actually have more than a ten degree difference in just the air it shows the air is not moving. Warm air will rise and cause the air to mix. If I had a room that had 10 plus degrees different in air temps I would expect something to be very wrong.

Lodgically the enclosure should be slightly warmer at the top than the bottom so if you think you are measuring air temps and you think you have a side to side difference the top inch or so should be the warmest (warmer than 82). You can demonstrate what I am saying if you can hold a probe close to the ceiling and it is cooler than the suspected 82ºF air there is something a miss likely the 82ºF reading is incorrect.

There is some discussion that radiant heat sources foul IR guns as well. Some high end units this is not the case but few own top end flukes, to use a gun they say to shut down radiant heaters. My loose understanding is the lower end meters measure the brightness of reflected IR illumination, having an IR source causes an error. How much or what that could be I don't know, it is the engineers prattle and I have to struggle to keep up.

You have to understand such a complex heater to use it correctly, radiant heat is hard to get your head around, and needs more understanding than average to use well than most other heaters.

You get a different effect in a black walled enclosure than white. Plastic than glass or wood, what substrate you use, what the hides are. Most heaters are not so variable.

All great points and info Kitedemon. Very helpful info and I will be using it all to test my cages out. I greatly appreciate you sharing your knowledge with a noob like myself.