Ah. So it was the fault of the tub/rack system, not actually the heat tape itself. That makes more sense as heat tape is pretty much just an on or off deal with voltage running through it if that makes sense.

And nah I believe you. I'm just saying, I bet a lot of people just plug these things in and figure everything will be fine. How many people have to seen here that don't even think of a t-stat for UTHs and just slap them on and plug them in and then wonder why it got to 120F+, cooked their snakes and discolored whatever it was sitting on lol.

I had a Zoo Med UTH short on me once and melt a small hole in the plastic/rubber coating material. It was under my dubia roach colony bin and luckily didn't start a fire. I was only using a lamp dimmer to run it too. That was my first experience with that happening. Definitely a wake up call to use a good quality t-stat with any UTH/heat tapes and any other heating source.