Quote Originally Posted by snakesRkewl View Post
If the room is 68 degrees then a UTH probably won't get the ambient temps you want andwill probably have to use a small ceramic on top of the uth.
I'd use the rheostat for the ceramic and pick up a cheap thermostat to control the uth.
If you want to save some money buy flexwatt from reptilebasics or the beanfarm and wire it to a cord and plug that into a thermostat instead of a store bought prebuilt heat pad.

11x12 flexwatt = $3.60 a foot VS $20+ for a prebuilt zoo-med or Zilla heat pad or other store bought.
With an 11X12 you can cut it down to cover 1/2 of the bottom of the tank which will help some with your ambient temps and still give the snake room to cool off on the cool end.
Just so your aware, 11" flexwat has SPECIFIC Cut here lines which is at every 12". If you cut it through the black you will compromising the heating elements. As most 11" sold now isnt straight black lines now, rather zig zag

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/flex_cut.jpg