....the best route to go is a digital w/ 2 temperature displays(usually indoor/outdoor) and a humidity reading. Then you can monitor the warm side, cool side and humidity of the enclosure.
I wouldn't personally go with a strip. Heck they sell those to check my kid's temp too and I wouldn't use those either LOL. Digital has come so far down in price and is so much more accurate I feel it's the way to go.
We use the Accu-Rite indoor/outdoor thermometre/hydrometre from WalMart ($14.99) but Home Depot sells the same thing tho a different brand for just under $18.00. Works greats! Eventually we'd like one of those nice temp guns Matt sells.
Just pop the Accurite in the cool side, feed the probe line out of the enclosure and back in (very long cord but very thin), tucking the probe just inside the warm hide. Then you get the cool side temp, the warm side temp inside the hide and the general humidity at a glance.
Thx for all the help, but I dont have a WalMart, Eureka mall olny has a got petco and there bad. But I will buy one at my store and they take care of all there animals and have good producs. thx all!
i just went in to get a thermometer and noticed some of the analog ones on the shelf. they all seemed to be within 7 or 8 degrees difference from each other. some said 70, some said 75 and some said 78. showed me right there that i needed a digital.
i just went in to get a thermometer and noticed some of the analog ones on the shelf. they all seemed to be within 7 or 8 degrees difference from each other. some said 70, some said 75 and some said 78. showed me right there that i needed a digital.
You may still get 2-3 deg. difference between most digital thermometers. I had originally had 3 different digital thermometers in my first enclosure...the temperatures varied between the three about 5 deg. It helps to read the thermometer specs that are usually on the back of the box. it will usually say +-2 deg variance/deviation on the back of the box. If one thermometer is reading -2 deg below actual and one that is reading +2 deg above actual then there is a 4 deg temp difference between the two. That is always a spec to check out when you are buying any heating type equipment(thermostat,thermometer, etc). Now I use a raytec temperature gun for all my measurements and it still has a +-2 deg deviation(i think)...I can just meausure anywhere i want.
For this reason you alway want to aim for the average of the temperature range for the cool and warm side when setting up the enclosure (i.e. 83 cool/93 warm) This way if the temp varies +-2 deg. then you are still in the safe zone.
Sorry for the ramble....just wanted to let you guys know this