I use a johnsons and it's an on/off. It works fairly well as far as on/offs go, but I also use hydrofarm and there isn't much difference. Also depending on the UTH I'm not sure why you'd need anything between that and the plastic. I use flexwatt on my DIY rack I made, I taped the flexwatt down to wooden boards, taped the probe on top of the flexwatt, and then I just add and remove the tub as needed (for cleaning, feeding, etc.)