Heating Question...

[dr del]

Hi,

If you don't mind the little extra reading effort I will try and interject points in the place that made me think of them for clarity.

Gloryhound - please do not take offense at what I'm about to say. It is not aimed at you personally. It's just my observation of this forum as a whole.

OK. I have seen post after post urging the use of tubs because it is easier than trying to get temps and humidity correct in a glass tank. With tanks you have to insulate the sides, wrap the screen with aluminum foil, have a UTH with a t-stat, sphagnum moss, Acu-Rite digital thermometer, etc., etc.

Now someone has a problem with a tub. Now we add more flexwatt for under or side heat, add another t-stat, tub must be in a rack, air holes in the wrong place and the room has to be heated above 75 degrees.

It really isn't that big a difference between the two - both need the thermostat,thermometer and UTH for example.

Glass isn't a very good insulator of heat but is generally rigid and formed in easily clad shapes so the insulation for heat and humidity is fairly easy to do - tubs are slightly better insulators for heat but, if the environment is cool enough, that won't make enough of a difference. But their shape and opening methods make applying external insulation a lot trickier compared to the glass tank.

I live in an old draughty house in a country known for being cold and wet - if my room is above 75f someone has had the heater on. 68f is a more usual temp for me.

So I knew I would need extra heating on the cool side and planned for it from day one.

Now in the last paragraph most of the examples you gave are either/ or options;

Room above 75f

Or

Add more flexwatt - controlled by either another thermostat or through a dimmer connected to the first one.

Or

Tub in a rack - this is effectively just insulating the tub if you use closed racks. In an open rack system it doesn't really make any difference aside from the heat rising from the tubs below possibly - never used this system so not sure on how much of a difference that makes.

The placement of the holes is just part of the tub setup - but if they are in the wrong place/ level they can mess things about a bit.

Do you guys have any idea how ridiculous this sounds? You're making people nuts. I can see this amount of effort for a breeder or someone with dozens of very expensive snakes but for the average person with a $20 snake, this is way overkill. And you almost had me convinced that if I didn't get everything exactly right my poor snake would be miserable. :cens0r:

It really isn't that much effort and it doesn't have to cost all that much either - the price of the snake is generally irrelevant. Think of it the same way as salt water tanks - you keep an environment the animals just happen to live in it.

My point is that it's great that there are so many people willing to help a newb out with all this advice but it's gone way over the top. Temper it a little.

Newb says "My setup is not perfect."
Expert says "Snake healthy and eating? No problem. Minor tweak here and here. Done." Cost=pennies, not HUNDREDS $$$.

Sorry about the soapbox. Perhaps I need a break.

We do try and do that but a lot of the posts we get here are not the type you describe - we get the "My snake won't eat - but everything is perfect with my setup" far more often.

Then we find out that they spent hundreds of dollars on utter guff they and their snake neither need nor wan't and that pennies just will not fix their setup.

Believe it or not we tend to recomend one of the most basic, simple setups you can get for keeping the animals happy and healthy. The complications and problems are usually trying to retro-fit that concept into the hardware they already bought on the advice of some sales clerk in a chain store who either didn't know or didn't care what the animal actually needed.

Sorry this rambled on a lot longer than I meant it to.


dr del