Hi I'm new too this and have some questions about heating, I went today and bought a "starter" kit from my local reptile supplyer, it came with a plastic tank very sturdy and covered in vents a heat mat and all the gubbins to go inside. I filled the tank with the shavings and popped the bowl and hide in hoping to test that everything worked.. Plugged the heat mat in and waited.. My main concern is the mat dosnt seem to heat the tank much if at all, I have a termostate set to the right temp but that never seems too go off, at first I thought it was the surface being in the top floor in the winter the room is cold and the laminate top tesk the tank is on is cold, after adding some card to the underside of the heater it seemed to warm up but again nowere near as warm as I expected. I tryed plugging it in directly to the mains just incase the thermostat was just a variable resistor but alas still no joy or heat.. Sorry to ramble.. Any advice?