Heating Cage

[brownguy]

At my pet store the man who sold them to me said that they need more heat during the day about 95 F. And since they come from the desert I believed him. Now, I was reading some care sheets and they said that the tems should be about 88. [On the hot side] is this at night and is the 95 during the day alright I do lower the temp to 85 at night.

[justcage]

90 tops on the hotside during the day... I keep the same temps 24 hours a day.. Most pet shop guys dont know a snake from a lizard...

[elevatethis]

88 on the hot side MAX during the day. 24 hour heat is OK for these guys, but if you choose to let it cool at night (especially if you plan on breeding them), room temperature (70 F) overnight isn't going to hurt them at all.

[Smulkin]

Most pet shop guys dont know a snake from a lizard...

Should have seen me a while ago when I walked into our local store and saw they were keeping a blood python on Desert Blend!

They didn't care for me much after I tried to "explain" the problem with that hehe.

[justcage]

I worked at a petshop while i was in college..lol.. Got fired real quick..lol

[IamKaervek]

I didn't want to start another "Heating" thread, so I figured I'd bump this one on up.

Anyway, I've made the decision to set my tank up with paper towels instead of calci-sand or carpet, but I started thinking about how to heat the tank. Originally, I was going to use the ZooMed UTH that's already stuck to the bottom of the tank, which would have been fine were there sand on top of it. Now, I notice how HOT the glass gets directly above the UTH without a thick layer of substrate to disipate it - how am I going to do this with paper towels without scorching the Leo's belly? Would an overhead lamp be better, or am I overreacting to the heat's possible effects on the paper towels? I haven't measured the temp directly on the glass, though it's too hot to leave my bare hand on for too long.

[justcage]

You have to use a thermostat even if you used sand. The pads will get hot enough to kill your leo...

[IamKaervek]

Any experience with the ZooMed Repti-Temp 500R Thermostat?

[mlededee]

they work pretty well. if you don't want to spend the money on a herpstat (which is what i use for everything now) then that is the thermostat i would recommend. from my experience it seems to keep more consistent temps than some of the other lower end t-stats.

[IamKaervek]

they work pretty well. if you don't want to spend the money on a herpstat (which is what i use for everything now) then that is the thermostat i would recommend. from my experience it seems to keep more consistent temps than some of the other lower end t-stats.

Are there any thermostats that can manage multiple heat-sources? From what I've seen, only 1 or 2 devices can be controlled per t-stat - certainly there's something more appropriate for those of you with several enclosures and even more herps, or do you seriously have to purchase a new t-stat for each new enclosure?

Perhaps a link to something at MGReptiles that would operate several units?