Heating the tub

[NickP]

Guys, I'm trying to figure out how to heat up the tub. I stuck the UTH under it BUT here's hte problem. Everytime I try to get inside of the tub in the 90-94 zone the actual UTH gets upto 120F

Right now the UTH is 90 and inside the tub it is 74F

[SatanicIntention]

How much bedding are you using? For that size tub, I use 4 full sheets of newspaper, 2 full sheets folded in half on top of each other.

It will take a little while to settle, but once it is heated up, the plastic retains the heat quite well. If you need pictures of how I have mine set up(I have 4 of the same tub in various places on my floor), I can take some.

[NickP]

That would be awesome if you could post the pic!

btw....how can I keep the UTH from getting too hot? The thermostat stops it at 95F but in the tub its only 76

[SatanicIntention]

Secure the thermometer probe on the bottom of the tub above the UTH. Secure the thermostat probe in the middle of the UTH. Turn up the thermostat until you reach 92-94 inside the tub. try 98 for the thermostat first, then 100, then 102. Let it settle for 15-30 minutes in between and see where you're at.

I'll take pictures this afternoon

[waltah!]

Not sure if you have the snake in the tub yet, but I would take it out while you are experimenting if you do. I find that I have to use an oil filled space heater in the room during the winter to keep ambient temps up. Can't wait til it warms up here cause I know it's putting a hurting on my electric bill running it all the time. Without the space heater the ambient temp only gets to about 76*. Good luck!

[Gloryhound]

A good solid rack that totally surrounds the tub helps to keep heat up. I have built both the open style and the closed style in my hobby breeding center and the closed is the best for maintaining good gradients. You can go to Home depot or Lowes and get the 16" wide laminate shelf boards and build it pretty easily. Also I like to put the T-stat on the flex-Watt (I use flex Watt on all my tubs as it is cheap and easy) then put a thermometer probe on the bottom of the tub inside. Once you find a the temp of the UTH that creates a temp of 92 on the actual bottom of the tub maintain it for 24 hours and see if the bottom of the tub stays the same. In my multiple rack systems hooked to one T-stat I run the 24 hour test on all tubs and use the setting that makes the hottest of them all 92 degrees. This results in all the tubs being between 90-92 normally as long as all the UTH's are the same and the tubs are the same. We mist our tubs daily and while we are at it we use a heat gun to check the hot side temp and the temp of the snake. After getting it all set up we remove the thermometers as I still have not found a probe type thermometer that is 100% accurate and I have tried around 5 different ones, but my temp gun is an ISO-9000 calibrated piece of equipment that came with a certification sheet.