ambient temp

[Roy]

I'm thinking of ordering a cage from Jeff (4x2x1). Since my house is usually kept at 70-75 I was wondering what's the temperature that heat tape heats the ambient temperature of the enclosure on the cool side. I'm just worried that it won't bring the cool side to the 80-82 mark while still keeping a 90-95 degree basking spot.

All replys are apperciated.

Thanks,
Roy

[morti]

Hi Roy!

I use the 421D (48" X 24" X 11.5") cages with the heat tape installed. The ambiant temps in my warm end are about 88 and in the cool end they run about 81-83. The temps in my room stay at about 73-74 degrees.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. cwm11.gif

-Your Sick Uncle Morti.

[surfimp]

I have a semi-custom 4'L x 2'W x 2.5'H cage with a shelf from Jeff that I use, and I've got it set up as follows:

- 2 pieces of 24" Flexwatt (11" wide) running lengthwise under the left side (covers an area 22" x 24", basically 1/2 of the cage floor)

- Oil-filled radiator style space heater

- Helix DBS-1000 thermostat controlling the enclosure's heating elements, and a Helix 1500W thermostat controlling the space heater

I keep my room heated to 82*F at night and it typically raises during the day to about 84*F-86*F (I live in Californicatia). This gives me a warm spot that's generally about 85-87*F air temp / 92*F-93*F surface temp, and a cool side temp about 82*F-84*F air & surface.

I found that having a lower room ambient temperature tended to make the surface temps over the heating elements too high. In order to get proper gradients across the cage from left to right on both the shelf and the floor of the cage, I found that heating the room was the most straightforward method. I probably could have run additional heat tape underneath the floor of the cage, but I didn't want to create that large of a "hot spot".

You'll undoubtably need to experiment a little bit before you get your setup dialed in for your particular room. Using proportional thermostats to control my heating elements has been quite nice; my electricity bill hasn't been hit that badly at all.

Lately my snake has spent the majority of her time up on the shelf in her flowerpot hide...the temp there is about 84*F all the time. Spoiled little brat! :)

I Also use Heat Tape on my custom cages they work well at keeping the temp at around 87.