Eh up,

Sadly I'm stuffed as my royals are too big for the poundstretcher ones round here (which are approx 6.5" x 13.25" x 29" by my cack handed measurements).

They also have 5 dips in the floor to make the feet -probably ok but just raises them slightly from the heat.

I went into the shop today and discovered I had seriously mis-remembered the prices

the heat cables he sells are made by Rena and are as follows;

100 watt 50 ft (15m) £60.39
50 watt 26 ft (8 m) £41.78
25 watt -- ft (4.5m) £33.70

and dimming thermostats with night/day are £69


So I hit ebay and came up with this;

zoo med heat cables;

100 watt 12m £37 shipped
50 watt 7m £25 shipped
25 watt 4.5m £18.50 shipped
15 watt 3.5m £18.50 shipped

Habistat dimming day/night £45 shipped

23" x 11" heatmat 28 watt £15.40 shipped

All found from 3 ebay shops in the uk - links below;

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/The-Pink-Sk...tological-shop

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/D-C-TORTOISES

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Reptilekeeping

Only the pink skink sells heat cable - but I do remember someone telling me heat cable was more used in europe and I didn't look internationally.

Flexwatt I can't find anywhere - I'm guessing its fallen foul of the electrical regulations/differences or something.

The problems I can see are that heatmats probably need individual t/stats without giving a great deal extra watts/shelf so might cost more.

I had planned to split my racks anyway with a seperate heat for the bottom 2 shelves to be used as hatchling racks. I also need to factor in the price of buying a router or jigsaw. I really envy the American prices for all this stuff

At this rate its coming close to the cost of building the traditional ceramically heated viv's - mind you it would free up a shed load of space in the living room.

The heat cable is about4 mill in diameter and very flexible - so routing might be ok but I dont know if it's supposed to be raised off the floor.It does have stands but he wouldn't let me pull out 50 foot of cable to look at one .


hope some of this info helps someone - and on a happy note one of my python eggs has started to dimple



dr del