Temp Problems - Thoughts on what I did?

[dakski]

Oh dang, that's interesting. Well of course I can't speak for how safe/plausible it would be to try that out for obvious reasons so perhaps someone else in here has some experience with that and can weigh in? It definitely all makes sense though.

Do you agree I should probably see how a 2ft section on the warm side works out before getting the extra foot on the cold side, since I can always add it later? As far as the heat tape itself goes, lower wattage correlates to the width, right? If I were to get a lower wattage, I assume I'd be looking for 6in heat tape or do they have 12in at lower wattage as well?

I do not agree with that. I would not get more than 2ft total for your tank and not more than 1ft on the warm side. I have 2ft total on my 4X2' and 6X2' tanks.

Your BP needs a temperature gradient. That means 88F hot down to 78F cool side. If you use 2ft of heat tape on the hot side as one piece and run off one channel on the thermostat, you would have to set it lower than ideal temp for the hot side to make it acceptable for the middle.

The idea is you want to give your BP options. You do not want hot and cold, but hot, less hot, and cool side. The bigger the tank the larger the gradient can be. In a 3X2', 2FT of heat tape is already a lot, and as we have discussed, potentially unnecessary. The heat tape allows for belly heat but is not designed to heat the tank as the RHP does that. If you had 1X1' of heat tape, that would be fine too, but covering 1X2' makes it easier (front to back).

We are borderline overthinking this now. If you get 2FT, get two pieces and one for the hot side and one for the cool side. Initially, I would only plug in the hot side heat tape and the RHP and see what temps you get on the cool side. That might be perfect. If it isn't, then worry about the cool side.

In case it hasn't been said, set up the tank and then put your BP in. You want to make sure everything is dialed and in for a day or two before putting your BP in it.

I had the heat tape preinstalled by Jeff at Boaphile so I am not sure on how the wattage works. That is something you would have to look into. Again, you could just get the same heat tape and run off a separate thermostat, or a different channel. Wattage should limit the highest temp the most and the lowest less.