Remote thermostat has two outlets, couple questions

[Monty's_Mom]

http://www.bigalspets.ca/repti-temp-...hermostat.html

My 20 gallon glass tank needs a thermostat. In the winter, the house temp stays about the same but it can get hot in the summer. This remote thermostat can control two heating devices, most often it is for a heat lamp and a UTH. I bought a small UTH meant just for reptiles at a pet store and I have never used a thermostat with it. I've never had a problem but some of the threads on here have scared me so I unplugged the UTH.

The heat lamp is set to one end of the tank and hangs over the tank with a chain, about 14 inches above his tank. I use a heat lamp meant for raising chicken chicks as they are less than half the cost and more important, bulbs are available in my town.

The single probe means that both the heat lamp and UTH will be the same temp. I'm thinking I will place the probe on the hot side, since Monty's hide is on the cooler side. The UTH is just the size of his hide so if he needs a cooler temp for a bit, he can rest on top of his hide or next to it.

Does this sound good?

[Eric Alan]

Just a warning - unless you can actually set two different temperatures with two different probes (I'm not familiar with this product), it will likely not be able to control two different heating devices accurately.

What thermostats do is raise/lower or turn on/off the power supplied to your heating devices based on the temperature the probe is sending them. If it has one probe, it will only transmit/receive one temperature reading. Unless it is connected to two identical heating devices, the heating devices will run at different power levels - still generating unbalanced, potentially, unsafe temperatures between them.

This may or may not be an actual problem - that's what a reliable temp gun or probed thermometer will tell you. Typically, out of an abundance of caution, it's recommended to have a separate thermostat for each different heating device.