I've been asking the same question, in this forum and via internet research and speaking with friends.



Lots of people use heat tape directly inside on the floor of their tanks, and I'm now doing the same. Some swear by it, and some have used it for years.



However, I've noticed a number of stories about pythons and boas getting burned from heat tape which is too hot. Some say that colubrids don't share that tendency, and my own experience seems to confirm that is true.



I would think that 3 inch heat tape could be used on the walls of the enclosure without problems. No snake lies on the walls, does it?



I hope you have a heat gun. It's amazing what you learn by using one of those little tools. (Mine is the tiny one that costs $35, and I tested it against one of the really expensive larger models: it's pretty accurate.)



I use a dimmer. I found that the full on temperature of the heat tape was about 120 degrees, and a LOT of people screamed out warnings about that temperature. I now keep the heat tape at a level that produces about 95 degrees (plus or minus five degrees over the surface of the 11 inch tape), but even then, when the heat tape is buried, it heats up to much, much hotter temps, around 130!



I'm beginning to view heat tape as a portal. The thing I'm doing is pumping energy into the tank. The energy is flowing through the electric wire. The actual portal into the tank is the heat tape, which converts the electricity into heat. Once converted into heat, that new form of energy just stays in the tank, eventually leaking out into the cooler room.



As a portal for pumping energy into the tank. of course, it depends on the freedom of the flow of the energy. Think of a river and a dam. A river doesn't have much water, because it gets to flow away. Yet, the exact same river WITH a dam holds a lot more water, because it is no longer free to flow away and so it builds up. In the same way, naked heat tape is only at about 95 degrees in my setup, but under the insulating blanket of an inch of wood shavings, the heat pumped into the tank via the heat tape is trapped and builds up, just like the river water behind the dam. In my tank, the 95 degree heat from naked heat tape builds up to 130 degrees under the shavings. Yet, the amount of energy being pumped into the tank does not change. Why should it? The wire carrying electricity supplies the same amount as before, it's just that the flow is blocked. The tank isn't any cooler or any warmer, for that matter. It's just that I've created a sort of heat "dam" on the heat "river", which is the heat streaming out of the tape and into the enclosure.



If you think of it that way, it shouldn't matter one bit if you put the heat tape inside a tube with holes, or on the side of the enclosure. You might end up trapping the heat flowing out of the tape in such a way that the tube itself heats up and begins to melt. Choose the right plastic through trial and error, I guess. But ultimately, you'll be pumping into your enclosure the same amount of energy, right? And that energy doesn't just disappear. It sits around keeping the tank warm, until it leaks back into the room.



I suspect you'll be just fine.



But I'd really caution you to be extra careful if you keep pythons or boas, as there seem to be lots of horror stories about those snakes getting burned.



Michael

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