Curious

[lipsticksmears]

Hey everyone. Before I go on with my rambling, I wanted to give y'all an update on DaVinci. I took him to the vet yesterday, and guess what? He's R.I. free. It turns out what I was hearing was the whistling noise from his shedding(he hadn't shed at all on his head). The skin had been irritating his nasal passage, and since the skin had been late to shed, it was constricting a round his nose and mouth, making it hard for him to breathe. I had tried so hard to get the skin off with a damp, warm towel but he is still a little head-shy and that was a task I'd have to wait on. So yeah. He's okay! And even ate a nice-sized mouse last night. ))

All right, so here's my question. I'm very ignorant on how to use thermostats for reptile homes, and I wanted to know if anyone could explain how they work, and what they plug into? I mean, do they control the heat of the heating pad/overhead light or what? I want to look into one, for future reference and definately to avoid anymore sickness. The R.I. scare was very stressful to me, and even moreso to poor DaVinci. I just want to do what's best for him.


P.S. Visuals would help too.

[xdeus]

That's great! I'm glad to hear it wasn't an RI.

Now onto your thermostat question... they work by regulating the power input to a heat source in order to maintain a set temperature. You just plug in the heat source to the thermostat, plug the thermostat into a wall outlet, place the probe near the area that you want to regulate, then set the thermostat to the desired temperature. The on/off thermostats are usually used to heat rooms with a space heater, but many people use them for their cages because they are a little cheaper. The proportional thermostats are usually used for cages and they regulate the amount of current that goes to the heat source such as an UTH or heat rope. They're better at keeping a more consistent and accurate temperature within the enlosure, but the on/off ones work fine, too.