Herp vs Human heating pad?

I'm bringing home my first BP in the next week and I've been looking around for the best way to heat her enclosure. I have seen some suggestions to use human heating pads instead of the usual reptile brand herp ones (to save cost mostly), but I was wondering if these provide enough heat for the snake? I currently have a 15 gallon tank, but the only form of heat I have right now is a white bulb heat lamp, which is probably the worst choice out there (it came with the tank when I bought it). So I'm trying to figure out a cost effective way to properly heat my little girl, any and all suggestions are welcome!

Heat tape isn't really expensive. Reptile Basics will wire it for you free of charge too! It's the thermostat that gets you :) I am pretty new here, but I've read up on some less expensive thermostats if money is a big issue - amazon.com has a Hydrofarm thermostat that I've read reviews on saying it works well for their reptile set up. I got one and am currently testing it out... So far, so good. As for a human heating pad, most of them have auto-off timers which leaves you worrying over turning it back on all the time. I personally used one only in an emergency situation, as we got a snake while traveling and I needed a way to keep her temps up just until we got her home. I don't think I'd recommend it for long term use... Anyway, that's just my two cents :) hopefully there will be others who can give a more experienced standpoint on it!

You can order a stat and flexwatt all from Reptile Basics ;)

A human heating pad will not work as they have a timer that turns them off after a couple hours.

Additionally human pads become exceptionally hot (too hot) and are a different design all together and cost far more to run. If there were savings it would shortly disappear into a power bill.

Heat sources and t-stats are not places to save money.

I used a human heating pad until it burnt a whole in the snake's tub. Eek! Now I just heat the room to 84.

Another thing to remember, use a thermostat that has a good record. You don't want one overheating and killing the snake or causing a fire. Sometimes it's better to spend a little more in the beginning...

If you are on a budget, check out the Hyrdofarm thermostats on Amazon...they work great for the price and are adequate for a small collection.

And flexwatt is definitely the way to go. You can get it for dirt cheap, and even cheaper if you know how to solder and you wire it yourself.


EDIT: Just saw that nimbly already mentioned the Hydrofarm...they are definitely a reliable entry level stat :)

This-

http://www.reptilebasics.com/heat-tape

And this-

http://spyderrobotics.com/

I don't care for hydrofarms. Had one on a qt tub once, but now its gone. ;)



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Not everyone can afford proportional thermostats, hydrofarms work if they work, I've bought a few and had one doa.
They aren't ideal but they work(not for me, but they do work, lol)

Human heat pads, even if you find one that won't shut off after 2 hours, will still need to be regulated because they get far too hot for a uth.

Or if you're on the super budget I was on - lamp dimmer. It takes a fair bit of fine tuning to get the temperature right. :P
http://www.lowes.com/pd_70717-539-TT-300NLH-WH_0__

I say spend alittle more on your tstat. I had a hydrofarm once for a temporary tub setup. It died in just a couple months. Good waste of thirty bucks.

I say do it right the first time.

The big issue with hydrofarms is hysteresis accuracy and backlash.

They are rated to 2ºC up or down (4ºF give or take) 3º more hysteresis and then back lash. I would never suggest one as anything but a back up. They are designed to heat dirt. I would suggest due to the questionable accuracy (4+3=7ºF on the bad side if it is in spec) that a reliable accurate thermometer be also required and one of reasonable accuracy say 1º of correct. Makes sense right. So 30$ for a T-stat and 100+ for a thermometer. It is a poor choice neither cost effective or very reliable good unit.

For a first ball python in a glass tank, I'd go with the ZooMed/zilla/exoterra/known brand reptile-specific under tank heating pad. Spend the money. Heat is the most important thing after water and hides. You can use that on a tub too, if you haven't got a full rack.

Make sure you match the size of the pad to the size of the tank. You do NOT need a giant pad for a 15 gallon tank. If you're having a problem keeping the ambient air temps warm, buy some styrofoam at an art store and glue it to 3 sides of the tank for insulation, and throw a towel or a blanket over screen. You can leave an inch open for air circulation.

Even reptile-specific heating pads often get dangerously hot if they have nt power regulation. So you will need some kind of thermostat.

For a cheap thermostat option, go to Home Depot and get a "table-top lamp dimmer". They're $10 or so in the lighting section. Lowe's has them too, but they're twice as expensive for whatever reason. With the Home Depot model, note that it's weirdly backwards, and the green light turns on in the OFF position. The farther you are from the green light, more power your heating pad is receiving. You can play with that until you get the glass/plastic right above the heating pad to a nice 95F or so. If it's hot to the touch for you, it's definitely too hot for the reptile, so dial it down.

The bulb lamp will work just fine for keeping the temps up, as long as you've matched the wattage to the tank size. You want one of the red nighttime/heat bulbs for a snake, because it'll be on all night. White lights will confuse them about the day/night cycle.

Make sure the bulb is resting over the screen, at least an inch away from the anywhere the snake can reach. They can and will burn themselves on exposed lights.

The major problem with heat lamps is humidity. Heat lamps really dry things out. Ball pythons are pretty tolerant of low humidity until they go into shed, and then it's just a mess. It's super hard to boost the humidity adequately for a shedding ball python with a heat lamp. The rest of the time they work fine. They're great if you've got a cold house or a sick snake.

Use caution when using a rheostat (dimmer). Yes they can reduce the power and therefor the heat from a UTH but they are dumb devices. What I mean by that is they don't track temps or know what's going on like a tstat. If the temp of your home or just the tank goes up, like during the day with day time heat the dimmer will continue to deliver the same amount of power and the UTH can easily get to hot. You will find yourself constantly messing with it trying to get it dialed in, but it never will.

These work far better for bulbs. In my experience using them with a UTH is just to risky.