I know a lot of people use ceramics, but I don't really like the look of it in a viv and with 18" hight the guard ends up quite low.

Anyway, my royal always sits in her hide on the hot side so I wanted to make sure that this is the proper temperature but even the guard gets quite hot if you try to get the temps near the hide to 90-92F.

So I had the plan to put a heatmat inside for the hotspot and a radiator for the "cold".

The vivarium in question is 3ft wide, 2ft deep and 18" high.

Let's get started. First some plywood needed.

Here I cut some sheets to perform a "ledge" where the heatmat will be put into ..
The cutout on the right is for the connector.



Here with the heatmat fitted



Now you can still see a cutout on the top .. this is where I thought I put a sheet of perspex.
The perspex in question is certified to let 92% of light through so in theory (considering that the heat is infrared) it should let heat better through than plywood

Here with added perspex



As you can see the floor surface is now even steven.
(pieces of paper are just to get the perspex out again for now)



Now to make sure it is pee-n-poo save I added some shelf lining I had spare to both, the ply-side and perspex.




Oh and here how the probe has been hidden



Here a little test



Can't get better than that I suppose ..

Here the radiator



And with both running, measuring the temps in the hide on the hot side and the floor on the cold

Again, can't get better than that



Here without heating, as you can see the room is quite cold(ish) so the heating works like a charm.



As for the costs in case someone asks. I bought a large sheet of 6mm plywood from a DIY shop for around $25 quid and had it cut by them. The perspex was around $40 (6mm) so the whole structure "lifts" the floor of the viv exactly 18mm ... bottom sheet of 6mm, blocks on the right beside the connector (2x6mm on top of each other), two 6mm sheets left beside the heatmat beside a strip of 6mm to provide the little ledge for the perspex (I hope that makes all sense lol).

Will post updates once the aquarium sealant has stopped smelling, both hides / waterbowl put in and temp test run to make sure everything still works out before I put my girl in there

Oh and yes, that thing beside the radiator is a webcam .. will of course post a link too - but lets be honest, its a royal so you will look at a hide with maybe some scales visible

I want to breed her next year so its at least all done and dusted by then (since I want to watch OF COURSE )

The viv is on a little stand (kind of a cupboard without doors) so all the cabeling is nicely hidden (including the small PC for the webcam) - the only cable now is one powercable leaving the back of the viv. The two stats, timer for the light etc. - all hidden


Little disclaimer: you can see that I cut the plug off the heatmat cable in order to feed it through without cutting out a mahoosive hole. I do NOT recommend doing this unless you know what you are doing. Needless to say this voids any warranty the mat may have but I am also certified electrical engineer (certified up to 10K volt) and have all the necessary tools and test devices to make it is still save and sound after putting everything back together again. I am even certified to sign up for any electrical work to satisfy any home insurance.