I've never used a heating pad on the side of an aquarium and question its value. It's more for heating the air, rather than the substrate. I've used under the tank heaters for snakes, as well as my pacman. Since snakes, and pacs burrow, I tape down layers of cardboard over the heat pad. Then I take the temp of the cardboard directly and adjust the number of layers so that it gets to the target temp. Then i cover a little substrate over the cardboard. That way the top of the subsrate is just under the target temp, and if the animal burrows down it only comes into contact with the cardboard which should be at the target temp. Also, the surrounding substrate will be heated a little too which gives your substrate a bit of a temp gradient. I've never had any problems using them this way. Good-luck!

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