I use human heating pads since they are cheaper than the ones made for herps..I have one under the cool side and one under the warm side..reason being, so my warm side has the heat it needs to suppliment the heat emitter I use..and the cool side would get too cool at night if I did not have a little heat under it. I have my water dish sitting over the heat pads a bit to add humidity, it took a while to figure out where and how much to sit over the heat to give off just the right amount of humidity. However I have to fill the dish frequently because of this. But I dont mind since I am always in and out of thier cage. I have not had problems with the heat emitter drying things out...and I have my bp's in a 40 gallon breeder tank.