Place the probe directly on the heat tape, but use a temp gun to monitor the inside of the tub's surface. Adjust the T-Stat up or down until you are maintaining the desired temp on the tub surface. Remember, even if you are using a substrate like aspen and have it fairly deep, the snake will eventually move it and have its body touching the surface, so you don't want the surface temp to exceed the proper (safe) range. That being said you probably don't need more than about a 1/4 inch of substrate. If you have an empty tub, you can set up an accurite thermometer with the probe over the hotspot and the body on the end without the heat source. Trust the temp gun over the thermometer, but you can use the thermometer to see that the temps are staying stable.
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