Thermostat issue, help please

[The Serpent Merchant]

Good news everyone! After putting the probe in the cage i was able to get the temps to where they should be furthermore the acurite thermometer only measures 1 degree under the thermostat. This has also further confused me.

As established earlier, when the probe was under the tank I had to have it set to 80F to get the 90F hot spot (as read by the Acurite) so logic dictates that they should not be reading almost the same... There is sorcery afoot!

As far as the Hydrofarm failsafe goes, I'm all for it but a bit confused. It was my understanding that the settings for each probe on the Herpstat were controlled separately. Could you describe exactly how it would be plugged in? I was thinking Flexwatt->Hydrofarm->Herpstat?

Again, thanks for all your help.

Its the other way:

Flexwatt -> herpstat -> hydrofarm -> wall

This works best with single channel thermostats like the herpstat 1 or intro but it will work as well on a multichanel thermostat as well (like the herpstat 2 or 4) but whatever is plugged into the other channel(s) will be held hostage by the hydrofarm in the case of a failure.

This works because the hydrofarm is an on/off style thermostat. It allows power to get to the herpstat as long as the set temperature on the hydrofarm isn't breached. If you plugged the hydrofarm into the herpstat as soon as the herpstat reduced power to that channel the hydrofarm will go dead (or worse start acting erratically)