I have a incubator setup with an aquarium heater and I still use a thermostat with a probe out of the water and a fan to circulate the air. I do not trust it because the heating element and the thermostat are combined in aquarium heaters. Separate units in an incubator are much better at keeping a temperature constant. Better to be safe than sorry specially since you can get a decent thermostat fairly cheap.
True story, I'm in no way saying you can't use a thermostat, but the design doesn't need one, and I believe shouldn't have one.
The idea that an external t-stat is better than the internal in the aquarium heater is debatable. Hundreds of thousands of aquariums across the U.S. use internally regulated aquarium heaters, and while not all are created equal, most of them provide more than adequate control of heating the water in the tanks that they are in. Because they are heating water, the temps are generally more stable than anything we can provide our snakes, as temps remain more stable in water.
I've used Aqueon aquarium heaters in all my fish tanks for years and have had no reason to doubt that they will control temp.
That being said the possible issues I see in using an external t-stat are that they measure air temp, which isn't the medium the aquarium heater is in. I feel that is similar to putting your t-stat probe in your snakes tank/tub instead of on the heat tape/mat. If you set the aquarium heater as described in the video, and use a Accurite thermometer to monitor the egg box, the design works perfectly fine.
I'm all for thermostatically regulating our animals, and making sure that they are given the best care possible. But adding a t-stat over another t-stat is a little much. Would you hook the t-stat that controls a snakes enclosure to another t-stat before plugging it into the wall? At what point is too much?
Reply With Quote