Questions about heat tape

[ralamzull]

First off, its technically my wifes snake, so I let her learn all about them and ask her questions when I hold him. So honestly I know very little of how they are to be kept. My expertise lies in bearded dragons, which I know very well; no under-heat, halogen bulb on basking, dimmed to temps 106-110, cool side in the mid eighties. I need UVB and all the good stuff. I build my own cages for my beardies and want to build one for our growing snake family.

Problem is that shes telling me a tub is much better... allows for stress free living... seems odd to me, but okay.

She tells me a tupperware type tub is best... okay... now light heating is out of the question... so she says under-tank/under-belly heat is better anyway...

Well I've read a bit about flexi-watt tape. I heard its fairly cheap, and great when used in commercial type applications... But from what I understand it simply heats up when plugged in. So then a thermo-stat is introduced. pretty expensive for something we're gunna need for each and every tub.

So I started thinking... maybe a reduced wattage to the flexi tape will keep it at a lower temp... kinda like turning down an electric stove. So I figure I can use a dimmer switch in conjunction with a digital probe thermometer to maintain proper heat... 90 on hot side and 84 cool...

figure I got it figured, but my wife says that this set up will only work in a climate controlled room... so where my den in the winter (where all our reptiles are housed) gets pretty cold at night with out the beardies lights off and the computer on standby. Yet during the day I have a sothern exposure and the room gets pretty warm, boosting my animals temps up. I've used my beardies thermometers to read that in they're plexiglass, well vented enclosure the temps only drop to about 72. Yet in the day they soar up to 89-92 during the day...

I wondered if the smaller, better insulated tub would not have those dramatic temp changes. Obviously once summer comes around here in co and my house sits at a warmish 85, the dimmers would have to be adjusted accordingly... probably need to be tinkered with once a week, but I tinker with my beardies heat almost daily anyway, so I'dd probably be on top of any serious temp changes.

anyhow, shes insistant we buy these bloody thermostats and run the heat tape off of that...

Not sure how I'm supposed to custom build a tupperware tub, but she want's me to build her some kinda rack... dunno...

anyway any advice would be great!

thanks!

[GirDance]

If you wire up the same size pieces of flexwatt in parallel then you will only need one thermostat, not multiples. You can find directions on how to do this all over the net.

As for a rack there are also great DIY projects here on the forums as well, and other member's directions, so I'm sure they will chime in for you

[West Coast Jungle]

A rack is a great way to house several BP's in a small area with only 1 thermostat. there are many manufactured racks you could purchase or make one yourself. Tubs are the best and easiest for housing BP's. They like smaller enclosures and also maintaining temps and humidity is much easier. There are several threads of homemade racks on this site. You will finds all kinds of great info here, Welcome aboard.

[TanyaL]

I use a dimmer switch with my uth and I hate it! I am constantly adjusting temps because our temps in the house flex so much. But, 95% of the time somebody is always awake and checking temps so it's not that big of a deal. If I had more than one snake, I would for sure have the flexwatt and thermostat. It's on my wish list but for now, I'll be checking temps and adjusting dimmers.

Also, if the fear of escape wasn't a problem, I'd have a tub setup as well. But, without that lock on it, some of the family members are not comfortable.

[ralamzull]

Alright, well surfing through these posts, I already have an idea as to what I want; a rack thats pretty snug top and bottom of the tubs... that should reduce and possable escape options... but I wonder how durable that flexi-watt is... since my idea involves a long strip of flexiwatt running down each "shelf" and heating three or so tubs per shelf... each flexiwatt would have its own power cord, all junctioned into one thermostat... now obviously my snug shelves would allow some play for the tubs to slide out. I wonder if I shouldn't place the flexiwatt underneath a thin sheet of melemite or something so as to not have direct contact with the tubs.

One of the posts I saw mentioned aluminum tape... never seen aluminum tape... unless its that shiny duct tape I've seen the sheet metal workers use...

oh, oh, oh!

another question!

my rack system will be roughly five or six "shelves" with the bottom two designed to accomidate large tubs for my females (since I understand a smaller tub is sufficent for most males). So now a new problem arises: more contact with the flexiwatt. the smaller tubs would be in contact with the flexi only so much... as wide as they are... a larger tub would have more surface space... meaning more areas in contact with the flexi... maybe I'm not understanding how bp's enclosures heat... cuz now i'm thinking the ambient temps on those larger bottom two would be higher... due to the greater contact with the heating elements...

would a dimmer for those two be ideal?...

What i'm thinking is take the two plugs for those two... feed them into a J-box... dim my hot line with load... and use one plug for the both of them?

[Gloryhound]

I am currently working on a 3 tub rack. Ball Pythons need belly heat to aid in digestion. They do not need any UV type light as they get what they need from the mice and rats they eat. Putting BPs in to large of an enclosure can cause some BPs to go off feeding as they will get stressed.

While one Helix DBS 1000 would handle our 3 tub rack we have additional items we will be adding later (incubator, Juvenile rack, and Hatchling rack) that will require their own thermostat also. So we chose to purchase a Herpstat pro from spyder robotics. It costs $320 compared to the helix DBS1000 price tag of around $140, but if you look it has 4 individual probes that each one controls a different output. So it is like 4 thermistats in one regardless of your plans (ie multiple tubs on one T-stat or individual tubs on their own T-stat) it equates out cheaper you use the Herpstat pro. If you are only planning on having 1-4 snakes I think a Helix is a great unit as we have 2 right now and they work great for the 4 snakes we have. We our looking at getting into breeding and while the new addition we are getting would have only required a Helix we our looking to the future and what types of things we will be adding.

[starmom]

I was looking at the Herpstat Pro, but went with buying two Herpstat II's since I'm uncertain if my long-range plans permit me to keep all of the enclosures together and within the same proximity. I have a few Helix's but the wattage that a Herpstat can take is higher than a Helix, and the wattage a Herpstat II can take is higher than a Herpstat Pro. Figure out your wattage and look forward as much as you can into the future insofar as location of the racks, etc, and then make your choice.

[Wh00h0069]

Check this site out. It will help...

http://www.baileyreptiles.com/cb70rack.html