How to heat the air inside of a plastic tub

I have a sterilite tub for my snake and am running into issues keeping the air inside above 75 degrees. I live in Washington state so it is pretty chilly. Currently the only way for me to maintain a temperature of >75 degrees in the tub is to set the thermostat for my whole apartment to 75 degrees. This is making me somewhat uncomfortable and has raised my utility bill considerably. So I am wondering if there is a good way that I can raise the temperature of the air inside the tub without heating my entire apartment.

I use a space heater close to the front of the tubs and monitor the cool side temperature

The only way to increase the air temp in tubs is to heat the room. This is the biggest con of tubs, and something that a lot of people forget to mention when they recommend that everybody switch to tubs.

Tiny space heater does the job.

Do you think a regular reptile heat lamp would work if I poked a ton of small holes into the lid below the lamp? Or maybe just cut one big hole and put mesh over it?

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Originally Posted by Rob

Tiny space heater does the job.

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Yes, if I can't come up with a better way I will probably get a space heater so I can attempt to just heat the air around the tank. And at some point I am going to get a roommate so heating the whole apartment to 75 degrees will be unacceptable. However this is inefficient because most of the heat will escape into the room instead of being directed into the bin where it belongs.

You could use a radiant heat panel. For quarantines I have placed tubs in a larger tub or enclosure with a radiant heat panel on the top of the larger enclosure controled by a tstat.

From what I have read, it is a bad idea for a heat lamp to be resting on a plastic surface. Perhaps I could just make a circle of heat resistant tape on top of the bin so that the heat lamp rests on top of a thick layer of tape rather than coming into direct contact with the plastic lid?

Here is my improved idea.

Problem 1: The metal heat lamp may melt the lid if it rests on top of it.
Solution: Have the heat lamp rest on a circular layer of insulating, heat resistant tape.

Problem 2: The heat radiating from the lamp may melt plastic that is directly in front of it, or plastic directly in front of the heat lamp may prevent optimal transfer of heat into the bin.
Solution: Replace the plastic under the lamp with mesh, or poke many holes into the plastic below the lamp.

Can anyone think of additional problems that I have not thought of, or if my solutions are insufficient?

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Originally Posted by West Coast Jungle

You could use a radiant heat panel. For quarantines I have placed tubs in a larger tub or enclosure with a radiant heat panel on the top of the larger enclosure controled by a tstat.

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Your dual-enclosure idea sounds good, but I think there must be a way to miniaturize that setup. Having an enclosure within an enclosure seems like a waste of space.

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Originally Posted by hamsterman

Do you think a regular reptile heat lamp would work if I poked a ton of small holes into the lid below the lamp? Or maybe just cut one big hole and put mesh over it?

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I have done this with a large rubbermaid tub, and it worked great. I cut a large round hole in the top
of the tub, and covered it with mesh.
I put the heat lamp (I used a CHE) on the mesh, and used a thermostat set at 80, with the thermostat probe
on the floor of the cool side. This keeps my ambient temp, perfect. The only drawback, is that the heat lamp
kills the humidity, but I just use a humid hide to solve that issue.

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.

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

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.

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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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.