As long as it was a fairly thin layer it would work.



I have a pretty good idea about this, since I saw your post below about your wanting it to look real nice for an office setting, you could have the warmer side be shallower one, and you could even lay a 1 x 2, or broomstick, or branch, or ANYTHING across the bottom before you add the substrate(even at a natural angle, add or tack something over this if needed(depending on whatever it is), then this would also add a dimension of topography/landscape to the cage bottom.



You could do all sorts of cool stuff with it. This way it looks cool, the warm side isn't nearly as thick, you need less heat to penetrate to get the targeted temp, and everything is good. You would have killed two or three birds with one stone.



Putting some nice looking mulch in the oven for a while to kill anything would really look nice in the tank bottom too, then whatever else you want here and there to look like a forest floor would look very cool, just keep it thinner on the heated side so it is safer and even more economical as well.





~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

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