Need Some Answers

[erk628]

I'm new and made some mistakes. I have a 20 gallon and a 10 gallon tank. I just ordered and recieved a thermo and some heat strips from reptile supplies. Hooked it up today and its not working. Heres why I have a foot piece that is the 11 ichs for the 20 gallon and a foot piece 3 inch for the ten gallon. Don't know what I was thinking but I thought I could hook them both up to the thermo and it would be ok. Well it wasn't got the 20 gallon up to 94 degrees pretty fast but the 10 gallon was only at 85 degrees on the warm side. So I unplugged it. Now here is my plan wanna make sure this is a good idea before I go spend more money. I'm going to go get another ten gallon tank tommorrow move the BP thats in the twenty and move him to the ten. This will leave me with two ten gallons. Then I'm going to call reptile suppiles talk to Ritch and order another foot of the three ich strip for the ten gallon. Then when i get that hook them back up and everything should be fine. Seeing how a ten gallon is only 10 inchs wide I'm going with a 3 ich strip this sound right. Let me know what you guys think so I can go out tommorrow and spend more money. Thanks Guys!! Also I was told to put the probe from the thermo on the heat strip itself, but this seems weird to me. Now when I did this the thermo was reading 115 and climbing fast will my warm side was only about 82 degrees. I put the probe in the tank on the bottom under the beding and it went down alot. So what should I do about this should I put it in the tank or should I put it on the strip itself. I could put it on the strip then just wait until my Acrurite thermeter read between 90 and 94 then set it to that but I wil have to set the thermo itself really high, I mean really high. What do you guys think I should do . Thanks again

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I'm new and made some mistakes. I have a 20 gallon and a 10 gallon tank. I just ordered and recieved a thermo and some heat strips from reptile supplies. Hooked it up today and its not working. Heres why I have a foot piece that is the 11 ichs for the 20 gallon and a foot piece 3 inch for the ten gallon. Don't know what I was thinking but I thought I could hook them both up to the thermo and it would be ok. Well it wasn't got the 20 gallon up to 94 degrees pretty fast but the 10 gallon was only at 85 degrees on the warm side. So I unplugged it. Now here is my plan wanna make sure this is a good idea before I go spend more money. I'm going to go get another ten gallon tank tommorrow move the BP thats in the twenty and move him to the ten. This will leave me with two ten gallons. Then I'm going to call reptile suppiles talk to Ritch and order another foot of the three ich strip for the ten gallon. Then when i get that hook them back up and everything should be fine. Seeing how a ten gallon is only 10 inchs wide I'm going with a 3 ich strip this sound right. Let me know what you guys think so I can go out tommorrow and spend more money. Thanks Guys!! Also I was told to put the probe from the thermo on the heat strip itself, but this seems weird to me. Now when I did this the thermo was reading 115 and climbing fast will my warm side was only about 82 degrees. I put the probe in the tank on the bottom under the beding and it went down alot. So what should I do about this should I put it in the tank or should I put it on the strip itself. I could put it on the strip then just wait until my Acrurite thermeter read between 90 and 94 then set it to that but I wil have to set the thermo itself really high, I mean really high. What do you guys think I should do . Thanks again

Sound like your on you way.

Now the reason to tape the probe directly on the heat tape is that if tape in the enclosure your BP can get tangle up with the tape and your want to avoid that.

If you don’t tape it your BP will move it which will cause the temps to shoot up and that can be dangerous, your BP could also tip his water bowl over and then again the temp would shoot up too.

[erk628]

Thanks for the reply, guess I'll put the probe on the outside then just crank up the termo until I get the temps I need in the tank and tweak it from there. Thanks again for all your help.

[mlededee]

you shouldn't really need to get another tank and more heat tape. plug the heat tape into the thermostat before you plug the thermostat in--that way the heat tape heats up at the same time and will be at similar temps.

place the probe on the heat tape itself and cover it with electrical tape. whatever you need the thermostat to be set at for it to be the correct temperature in the cage is where you should set it. it may be higher depending on the substrate and how exactly it is placed under the tank. this may take some adjustment over a 24 hour period while the temps settle, but just keep monitoring the hot side in both tanks and adjust as necessary.

[erk628]

Thats what I did but the 11 inch strip got hotter then the 3 inch strip. My 20 gallon was 94 degrees on the warm side but my ten gallon was only 85 degrees. By the time the ten gallon would hit 90 degrees the 20 gallon would of been around a hundred.

[mlededee]

hmm, well i myself i never actually used two different sizes of flexwatt on the same thermostat but i would have thought it would work. maybe call rich and talk to him about it--he should have definitive answers.

and rather than buying another 10 gallon tank i might just get another strip of 3 inch flexwatt to use on the 20 gallon. your bp will outgrow the 10 gallon, so why buy another if you don't have to?

EDIT: OR buy another strip of the 11 inch and use that on the 10 gallon you have now, but just don't put all of it under the tank. that way when you upgrade to a 20 gallon you don't have to purchase another strip of 11 inch. (this is assuming that you need the 11 inch to properly warm the 20 gallon tank.)

[xdeus]

I didn't think it would work, or at least without putting in some effort. The 3" is 10 watts per foot and the 11" is 20 watts per foot. I suppose if you took your time and tested out different insulators you could even things out, but it would probably be worth it to just get another 3" panel and save the trouble.