Hi,

I'm currently drawing up plans for building my first rack setup, and I'm trying to figure out my heating.

I'm planning a 4-6 shelf rack. I will PROBABLY be using a herpstat 2 thermostat, but may squeeze out a budget for a herpstat 4 if I really need it to make things work.

Belly heat seems like it would be a bit easier to ensure that the snakes are getting the full-body heat they need. There is a warm spot that covers a known area of the tub, and is kept so that area is a known temperature.

However, I'm not crazy about the idea of snaking a single strip of flexwatt through all my shelves (if the flexwatt fails, the whole rack fails), but I also recognize that the cost of putting a thermostat probe for each shelf is going to add up quickly after 2 shelves. Otherwise if I use a 'master' that's monitored and used to determine the temperatures for each shelf, the unregulated snakes may get burnt if that master fails. I will not risk burnt snakes.

I'm not opposed to back-heating, but with back-heating I'd have a more gradual temperature gradient. The back may be warm enough, but how far from the back will that warmth carry? My main concern is, will the snake be stuck trying to thermoregulate itself with part of its body still in the cooler temperatures of the gradient? This also doesn't really solve the issue of "flexwatt dies, whole rack left unheated".

I'm leaning towards maybe doing a mix of back AND belly heat? This way if one flexwatt dies, I still have something for heat, but I don't have to worry about anyone getting burnt. Would the electricity be that bad? I'd imagine they would work together so they would more or less use the same amount of electricity because they would both be running at lower power than if they were used on their own. Or maybe set the back-heat to a lower temperature so it would only kick in if something happened to the belly heat?

If anyone has any suggestions I maybe haven't considered, or could lend their opinions/experiences I'd really appreciate it. Maybe I just don't have enough faith in the flexwatt? I've never used the stuff, but I'd rather plan things out now than find myself scrambling for a patch-fix with a bunch of snakes and no heating.