Will this make a good incubator?

So, I have heard styrofoam could make a good incubator for ball pythons, and by an coincidence I had one styrofoam box at home. I attached a heating pad on the top to heat it up. Let's see if the pictures will work for me.

This is the top, with a heating pad. I will add a thermostat to it aswell.

http://i1104.photobucket.com/albums/...lubb94/002.jpg

And next up, the box.

http://i1104.photobucket.com/albums/...lubb94/001.jpg

What do you think? Do you need some kind of water source inside the incubator, or will the damp vermiculite take care of it? This will be my first incubator for my first clutch, so I am totally new to this. Any help will be appreciated :D

You need some thing to circulate the air or you may get hot and cool spots. I would run it for a week or so to get accurate reading before adding any eggs.

Watched this last night, thought you might find some useful information here if you havent seen it before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlSS5...9EygULMQk3WDcA

Okay, I have changed my heat source ! Now I have one of those heat stripes attached to the button of the styrofoam box. I don't want to place my egg box right on the heat stripe, so I will add a styrofoam platform for the egg box to stand on. It is working pretty good even without a thermostat. It says about 35 degrees celsius (95 degrees fahrenheit) inside the egg box I will use, so I will have to cool it down a bit to 89 fahrenheit.

One fast question: where should I put the thermostat probe? On the heat stripe or inside the egg box?

Thanks guys ! :D

1) Yes styrofoam works wonders
2) T-stat probes go in the egg box
3) You will want to install some kind of small fan to circulate the air
4) You will want to line the bottom of the box with 20oz water bottles (filled) to stabilize the temperature. water has a very high heat capacity, so when it gets warmed up to a target temperature, it tends to moderate the temperature in the immediate vicinity quite nicely. Even just three water bottles will help greatly. This will minimize any temperature fluctuations as your t-stat does its job, and will help prevent massive heat fluctuations if you have to open your incubator.
5) If it were me, I'd have the heating element on the bottom, water bottles on or above the heating element, and any egg boxes on a suspended wire shelf above the water bottles

Thanks alot Mainbutter ! I didn't know about the water bottles. Is the fan thingy really necesary? I mean, my heat stripe is spread all over the bottom of the box so there won't be any hot and cool spots (I assume). Oh well, back to prepare my incubator. :D

An easier way to do it is put about 4 inches of water in the bottom of the box. Get an aquarium heater and submerge it in the water and plug it into a t-stat. Put a brick or something in the bottom so your egg box is not touching the water. place eggs in the egg box on the plastic light grate with no substrate. 100% hatch rate in my experience but I was using a cooler.

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Originally Posted by zues

An easier way to do it is put about 4 inches of water in the bottom of the box. Get an aquarium heater and submerge it in the water and plug it into a t-stat. Put a brick or something in the bottom so your egg box is not touching the water. place eggs in the egg box on the plastic light grate with no substrate. 100% hatch rate in my experience but I was using a cooler.

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That sounds like a great idea. What did you use for an egg box? And was the cooler closed? I mean obviously it would be but I wouldn't know lol Did you use a fan or anything like that?

6Qt tub for the egg box. Yes the cooler was closed and I used no fan. Temps stay constant because the water is what you are heating. Once you get the water to temp it is VERY stable. You get 100% humidity also with this setup.

If your gonna do a styrafoam incubator ya might as well just buy a hovabator. Too bad your in sweden. If you were in virginia id give ya a coupke of em lol. I have 3 of them that have been sitting in my shed for 8 years collecting dust i used to use for gecko eggs

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zues

6Qt tub for the egg box. Yes the cooler was closed and I used no fan. Temps stay constant because the water is what you are heating. Once you get the water to temp it is VERY stable. You get 100% humidity also with this setup.

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I hadn't read anywhere about someone using this method for bps? I used this with corns and had a 100% hatch rate with my girl double clutching with a total of 59. Got away from corns and my bp girls finally up to size and was just thinking about what I was going to do for incubator. I'll just have to dig that cooler out of the shed now.