RHP questions for cold room and T8

[Coluber42]

*Now that I had some sleep I realize what you meant by nearly taking up half the cage importance wise...would there be a proper gradient with an RHP taking up that much space? The 120 would take up much more, so in that regard I wonder if 80 watt is the better choice to keep a gradient and raise temps. o:

(Sorry for double post, I'd edit but it says it timed out.)

If you're using a RHP plus a UTH or heat tape, you could theoretically arrange things any of the following ways:
1. RHP on cool side for overall ambient temperature, UTH makes hot spot on the side that doesn't have the RHP. This is probably the best route if the RHP is larger compared to the size of the cage, because it lets the RHP run at a lower temperature/power to just maintain even overall temps; the UTH makes the hot spot and in doing so ensures that the corners farthest from the RHP don't get too cold, which could otherwise result in condensation.
2. RHP on the warm side, UTH just supplements the temperature on the cool side. This one is probably the hardest to get right because the cool side would have a warmer surface temperature than its air temperature (and would probably be warmer inside hides than outside, too). But it could help if whatever the cage is sitting on is a major heat sink. Although if that's the case, you should insulate the bottom instead. This way is probably better for a large UTH and a smaller RHP.
3. Both RHP and UTH on the warm side, cool side ambient just comes from spill-over heat. This one will probably give you a way bigger differential between the warm side and the cool side than you want, unless the room temperature is relatively high - in which case, you probably don't need both heat sources.
4. Large RHP dead center, UTH makes hot spot somewhere. This is basically a lot like case number 1. Keeping the RHP centered is probably the most efficient with regard to losing as little heat as possible to the room outside the cage.

If you're only expecting the RHP to give you the ambient temperature you want, not the gradient, you can't "overwhelm" the cage with a large one, assuming it's on a thermostat. If it's bigger, that just means it will run at a lower temperature but spread out over a larger area for the same total heat output. That sounds like a win-win to me, especially if the snake has branches/perches that it uses.


I can think of several reasons not to use an RHP under the whole setup. One: it's not as flat/ thin as a UTH, so you'd have to set it up on something. Two: You'd lose more heat to the room with it on the outside of the cage than on the inside. Three: It can run safely at higher temperatures on the ceiling than on the floor because snakes can't sit on the ceiling. You couldn't run a RHP under the tank at any higher power than a UTH of the same size, for the same reason you have to limit UTH's with thermostats/rheostats: floor can get too hot otherwise and snake gets burned. So it would basically be a really big bulky expensive UTH.

For what it's worth, I built my cage so that the RHP sits under a shelf/platform inside the cage instead of on the actual ceiling. This setup loses less heat through the top than just sitting it on the ceiling, and it makes an additional hot spot/warm zone on the shelf above the RHP. BUT: there is also a fair amount of insulation between the RHP and the surface of that shelf. At the power level required to heat the cage in the winter, the surface of that shelf would get way too hot without it. With the insulation though, the shelf is generally in the mid-80's. There is a plant and a couple of hides up there, and my snake actually spends more time up there than he does on his slightly warmer floor-level hot spot.