Quote Originally Posted by jmcrook View Post
Unrelated to your light, that is an ENORMOUS RHP for that size enclosure. 80watt it looks like based on the size? I’d shoot for the 40watt. I personally use that same 80 watt RHP for enclosures that are over twice that size. Reason being is that you’re going to have one helluva time establishing a temp gradient when the heating element covers the majority of the enclosure.
So... as most of it is now all set up, I always test for a few days to a week before putting any snakes in there. Preliminary results with the 80W RHP are as follows:

  • RHP: 80W Vivarium Electronics RHP
  • Thermostat: Herpstat 2
  • Room temperature right now is 64°F.
  • RHP is on the left side (warm side).
  • Besides the two probes I have from the Herpstat, I have additional thermometers set up to measure different sections of the tank. Tomorrow I will probably place more.
  • As recommended by Bob from Pro Products (and how I have all my other enclosures successfully set up) the thermostat probe controlling the RHP is on the cool side. The cool side temp is set to 80°F.
  • Current reading in the enclosure (all probes are just off the floor):
    • warm side rear: 86°F
    • warm side center: 87°F
    • cool side rear: 80°F
    • cool side center: 79°F
    • warm side and cool side placement refers to ALL THE WAY TO THE WARM SIDE and ALL THE WAY TO THE COOL SIDE.


So... will still tweak a bit. And, although I prefer not too, I have heat tape to place on the bottom, should we need to raise the belly heat a tad.