There are several ways to skin this cat. All of which do require a thermostat to dial it in perfectly. You can buy the ESU/zoomed/what ever they are calling it today. It is relatively inexpensive. One step above that would be the ranco or johnson controls. These are a lot easier to dial in to the desired temps. They are both digital so instead of a dial you can program in a temp and then adjust from that. You can also go to a proportional thermostat. These operate by reducing current to the heat source. It is slightly more expensive but most people think its well worth it after you get one, I myself like my herpstat pro a little overkill but it can handle several enclosures or racks. I know both the herpstat and helix are going to set you back about 150 bucks after shipping so it isn't exactly cheap but when looking at the big picture. How much did you spend on your enclosure. Over heating an aquarium and cracking the bottom glass pretty much makes it scrap. I have used all of the above and am still using the johnson controls, ranco and my herpstat pro. I personally would not pick up the zoomed because it took like 2 weeks to tune that thing in to where i was happy. I just replaced it last weekend by plugging it into my herpstat. It took me 4 minutes to program it and had it right the first time due to the fact I had the same rack already running on the herpstat.