Incubator recommendations?

[DerekG4]

What incubators do you guys use for your ball pythons? Somewhere in the near future (soon as my pythons come of age and weight) I'll be breeding them. I know it's going to be a while from now until they breed but reason I'm asking now is because I'm currently breeding leopard geckos and I want to see what incubators you guys use or that you'd recommend, assuming incubators that work for ball pythons work just fine for leopard geckos (Or any just about other reptile for that matter).

I had a homemade/DIY incubator once but it never worked, it would never hatch any of the gecko's eggs. It was a fair sized styrofoam cooler with heat tape on the bottom, water bottles on the bottom for heat dispersion (I've been told recently now that it doesn't really make a difference, at least for BPs), a piece of plexiglass cut into the top, and a thermostat. The only fault I could've found in it was that the temperature wouldn't be precise. I would have it on 85 degrees and it would turn off once that temperature has been reached, but it won't turn back on until it reached 80 degrees. It would do this every couple hours, which is really the only thing I could've been that killed the eggs. I know it wasn't humidity or anything else. At this point, I don't know if I should make another using a more reliable thermostat or just buy a factory made one.

I've been looking at a couple brands. At my job they're selling reptibators, I'm not sure if this is a good one or not. I've also had many mixed reviews with reptipro 6000 and an Exo Terra incubator, some people saying its great and works fine and some people saying its a complete piece of sh*t that will never hatch eggs, so I don't know what to choose.

I forgot to mention it would be best if the incubator was small. I don't plan on breeding so many animals that I would need a large one, at least not yet.

[highqualityballz]

What incubators do you guys use for your ball pythons? Somewhere in the near future (soon as my pythons come of age and weight) I'll be breeding them. I know it's going to be a while from now until they breed but reason I'm asking now is because I'm currently breeding leopard geckos and I want to see what incubators you guys use or that you'd recommend, assuming incubators that work for ball pythons work just fine for leopard geckos (Or any just about other reptile for that matter).

I had a homemade/DIY incubator once but it never worked, it would never hatch any of the gecko's eggs. It was a fair sized styrofoam cooler with heat tape on the bottom, water bottles on the bottom for heat dispersion (I've been told recently now that it doesn't really make a difference, at least for BPs), a piece of plexiglass cut into the top, and a thermostat. The only fault I could've found in it was that the temperature wouldn't be precise. I would have it on 85 degrees and it would turn off once that temperature has been reached, but it won't turn back on until it reached 80 degrees. It would do this every couple hours, which is really the only thing I could've been that killed the eggs. I know it wasn't humidity or anything else. At this point, I don't know if I should make another using a more reliable thermostat or just buy a factory made one.

I think most of the people on here are gonna recommend building your own. If you don't have the time or just don't wanna build one, hotbox incubators by cserpents are pretty top notch, I use hotbox and have no complaints. If your trying to save money I would also definitely recommend building your own but this time out of a broken wine cooler or broken fridge instead of the styrofoam cooler. There's plenty of tutorials on doing so and it would save you quite a bit of money.

[DerekG4]

I would much rather make my own incubator than having to buy one, especially if its much cheaper. I was just afraid to try again because my incubator was total crap and I wouldn't want to waste money again building something that may not work.

That hot box seems like a pretty good brand but I definitely can't afford it at the moment.

I'll try checking out the wine coolers. There's a couple people selling them near me on craigslist, is there any difference between the types or brands of them? Some people are selling them for as low as $30 near me for a pretty good sized one.

[highqualityballz]

I would much rather make my own incubator than having to buy one, especially if its much cheaper. I was just afraid to try again because my incubator was total crap and I wouldn't want to waste money again building something that may not work.

I'll try checking out the wine coolers. There's a couple people selling them near me on craigslist, is there any difference between the types or brands of them? Some people are selling them for as low as $30 near me for a pretty good sized one.

Nope, the cheaper the better. the brand doesn't matter whatsoever as you won't be using it for cooling like it's made for. As long as it has a door that opens and closes and is sealed like it's supposed to be, you shouldn't have any problems.

[DerekG4]

Alrighty, I'll see if I can find a cheap cooler on craigslist. Doesn't seem too hard to build it overall.

[Ba11er]

I don't have one yet but I plan on buying c serpents hot box.The reptibator and exotera incubators are going to be exactly what you pay for, cheap pos. I wish there were some better YouTube videos of the hot box but if your handy you could build one that works very similar.

[Tila]

Put your money into the thermostat! Granted I've only hatched one clutch thus far, but I used a herpstat 1 on dimming mode and that was successful for me. I attached the thermostat probe to the uths I used and I was surprised how much variation in temps the eggs themselves showed on the thermometer with it's probe in with the eggs. I didn't change anything with the temps but it demonstrated to me two things: don't choose the upper limit as your incubation temperature, and there seems to be enough variation of the egg temperature alone without a thermostat adding to that swing.

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[PitOnTheProwl]

I would have it on 85 degrees and it would turn off once that temperature has been reached, but it won't turn back on until it reached 80 degrees. It would do this every couple hours, which is really the only thing I could've been that killed the eggs. I know it wasn't humidity or anything else. At this point, I don't know if I should make another using a more reliable thermostat or just buy a factory made one.

Don't use an on/off thermostat. You want your temperature to be as stable as possible.
Pulse or Dimming would be the way to go.