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Another homemade incubator. (I might have gone a little overboard)
So we currently have 2 gravid females and were in need of an incubator. My last homemade incubator was a styrofoam cooler with a fish tank water heater and although it worked at the time there were a couple reasons we decided not to go that route this time. First, we have plans in the future to expand so we neexe more capacity. Secondly, one of our combos can produce super black pastels. Based on conversations with an individual that has had a fair amount of success producing kink free super black pastels I knew I needed a level of precision in regards to temperature that would be a challenge to attain.
I started with a wine cooler that I gutted and added heat tape with a quality thermostat. To maintain constant temperature I walled water bottles along the heat tape held in place by diffuser panels. To keep temperatures even and constant I added computer fans. By changing direction of the fans I can change the temperature for each level by up to 2 deg per level or I can keep all temps within .5 degree of each other. To further limit temperature fluctuation I used heavy duty clear plastic locking Rubbermade bins. I drilled 1 hole in the top of each bin for ventillation. The clear plastic bins combined with the led lighting allow for close visual monitoring of the eggs without exposing then to ambient air.
I have had it up and running for about 3 weeks now and it is holing temperature and humidity well. If anyone has any advise please feel free to speak up.
1.0 Albino Black Pastel Pinstripe BP "Menolo"
0.1 Albino Spider BP "Ginger"
0.1 Black Pastel Het. Albino "Jasmine"
1.0 Woma python "Stitch"
0.1 Woma python "Milo"
0.1 Woma python "Millie"
1.0 Blackhead Python
0.1 Blackhead Python
0.1 Blackhead Python
1.0 Black South African Boerboel "Midas"
0.1 Chocolate Lab "Coco"
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The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to enginee837 For This Useful Post:
Aedryan Methyus (01-20-2018),CALM Pythons (01-19-2018),Godzilla78 (01-20-2018)
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1.0 Normal (Emrys)
0.1 Fire (Calypso)
0.1 Pied (Tessa)
0.1 Albino Kingsnake (Nienna)
2.1 Cats (Suki, Daisuke, and Kyo)
0.0.2 Leopard Geckos (Chi and Pixel)
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hmmm now i wanna add more fans to my own build.
RIP Mamba
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Registered User
Re: Another homemade incubator. (I might have gone a little overboard)
I like the idea of the water bottles behind the diffuser. I didnt know the fans could effect the temp that much.
What size heat tape did you use?
Very motivating incubator build!
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Thank you! I used the 12" wide heat tape from reptile basics.
My last clutch I incubated with a 50/50 mix of perilite and vermiculite in sealed containers. It was my understanding that the sealed containers are needed to hold humidity and maintain a constant temp however it means you have to open the lid every once iin a while to get some fresh air in there. To me that seems counter productive.
I actually have an idea on how to keep a sealed egg box with no substrate that will always have fresh air and constant temp. I am thinking about running an air pump with an air stone the (the kind that run air stones in fish tanks) to a sealed Tupperware that is full of water. Coming off that Tupperware will be a manifold that feeds tubes to the sealed egg boxes. For ventilation each egg box will have a one way valve to let old air out as the fresh air comes in. The air is humidified and temperature normalized by passing through the water in the tupperware bin prior to being pumped into the egg boxes. The exchange rate will be very low so as not to cause any temperature fluctuations.
The pump will be outside the incubator so it will get fresh air from outside the incubator and the pump will not add heat to the inside of the incubator. I can coil as much air line as needed in the incubator to also help normalize temps prior to getting pumped into the water then on to the egg boxes.
Obviously this is an untested Idea but I have some time before I need it functioning again so it is a good opportunity to give it a go.
This whole process is not for bp eggs as they are fairly hardy. It is for my woma and future black-headed python eggs. They need high humidity, constant temps, lots of oxygen and absolutely zero moisture. Incubating eggs successfully seems harder than breeding them. I am hoping this takes the guesswork out of it for me.
Last edited by enginee837; 01-19-2018 at 11:16 PM.
1.0 Albino Black Pastel Pinstripe BP "Menolo"
0.1 Albino Spider BP "Ginger"
0.1 Black Pastel Het. Albino "Jasmine"
1.0 Woma python "Stitch"
0.1 Woma python "Milo"
0.1 Woma python "Millie"
1.0 Blackhead Python
0.1 Blackhead Python
0.1 Blackhead Python
1.0 Black South African Boerboel "Midas"
0.1 Chocolate Lab "Coco"
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Yeah, I agree with you. You might have gone to far. I bet it was fun building it. It should work great and look great doing it. Nice job.
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The Following User Says Thank You to Tigerhawk For This Useful Post:
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Very nice! You definitely won't be having any circulation problems inside of that bad boy! lol
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The Following User Says Thank You to Aedryan Methyus For This Useful Post:
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