Plastic container and heat wave UTH

[khara]

Please forgive more newbie questions about uth and caging. Glass tanks and heat lamps I get so I'm just trying to wrap my head around uth and plastic.

I switched my trinket snake to a sterlite and the humidity and temps are doing great but the trinket doesn't require additional heating like my BP.

I want to move my BP to a sterlite also but my Exo Terra Heat Wave UTH says "For use on glass tanks only." It's the 8"x8" size. Can it be used with plastic caging with a dimmer? Would I install it the same way as on glass? I read through other threads and see flexwatt is used with plastic. Is the Heat Wave uth the same type of thing? Also plastic doesn't conduct heat as well as glass right so would the 8"x8" uth be enough to heat the plastic cage? If I can use the UTH I planned to set it up on Friday and take temp readings for 24 hours. Have I missed anything?

[justcage]

Sure you can use the exo-terra pad on there.. Hagen(exo-terra) is made by Calorique which makes the flexwatt. The only thing is, will the pad be large enough for the tub. How big is the tub? The 8x8's are only 8 watts and thats pretty low if your looking for a 90+ hot spot.. Also the dimmer is a very scary thing to me(anal retentive)..
-matt

[khara]

Sure you can use the exo-terra pad on there.. Hagen(exo-terra) is made by Calorique which makes the flexwatt. The only thing is, will the pad be large enough for the tub. How big is the tub? The 8x8's are only 8 watts and thats pretty low if your looking for a 90+ hot spot.. Also the dimmer is a very scary thing to me(anal retentive)..
-matt

Thanks for your reply. I was thinking the uth might not be big enough to heat it properly. I was looking to go with a tub size comparible to the 20L glass tank he's in now. Yeah. I'm just not feeling too confident about the uth I have and I agree about a dimmer. Trying to work with one would probably make me nuts. My 20L glass tank temps are perfect as is my humidity it's just I have to maintain the humidity 3-4 times a day to keep it there. Maybe a sterilite with a screen square in the lid to accomodate a lamp would work better when it comes to humidity than the screen topped glass tank.

[khara]

Hmm. Ok. Well, I'll give sterilite with a screen for a lamp a try and report how it works. I hope i'm going down the right path here...

[greenmonkey51]

Stick with the glass tank if its working fine. It cant be that bad to spray down the cage 3-4 times a day. Also a lamp would dry out the air in the sterilite and negate an advantage of them. You could try to get some flexwatt. Its 3.8 at foot and works really well.

[khara]

Thanks and yeah I'm keeping him in the tank for now. I don't mind misting. I am going to set up a sterilite with a heat lamp and digital thermometer to test how much of a difference there is in temp and humidity. Then I can test it with the uth and see what temp and humidity range I get. It will be my little science project. lol

[khara]

Just wanted to update. Friday we made a rubbermaid container heated by a red heat lamp and tested the temps and humidity. My temps stay around 85.5 F cool side end 90.7 F warm side and 52% humidity without me having to mist daily. It only cost about $20 total with the yard cloth and soldering iron and took about 1.5 hours to make so it was well worth the time and effort. Sobe moved in Sunday. We arranged the new tank just like his old and I'm not even sure he's noticed. He ate well yesterday so it has worked out well.

Here's a pic... it's the rubbermaid on the left.

[justcage]

Nice looking setup