If I overlooked this in previous replies, sorry. But it's an important issue that I discovered the hard way.



Maybe you've seen my hatchling rack, and maybe not. I will link it below as reference.



Not only does material and ambient room temp. affect the use of back vs. bottom heat. So does "HEAT SOURCE".



What I mean is the product and size of that product you are using to heat with. Let's make this simple and just address Flex-watt tape...

You will see in my photos that I used 3" tape down the back. I thought this would work. It didn't. The rack is on an inside wall, has 1/8" melamine sheeting on back and then a piece of 1" styrofoam taped on the back of that. The tubs are Rubbermaid 2220. The problem was that 3" tape is too narrow for this application. Because it gets hotter than 4" or 11" for it's size. Plus, the wide lip on the Rubbermaid's was keeping a 1" airspace in the back. I used my temp gun and took a measurement of the temp on the tape. It was 145 degrees F. That is way too hot for this tape. The manufacturer, according to The Bean Farm, says about 100 is the max for 3". And the hot end of my tubs were only reaching 88-90 max. So in order to keep my tubs hot enough, I had to over heat my tape. Can you "Fire Hazard"?



I should have used 11" tape down the back instead. What I ended up doing though is putting 4" tape under the tubs by routing it down, across, down, across, etc. Now I get a great heat and gradient. I had the 4" already so I used it. I would have rather stuck with back heat and used 11".



Melamine gets cold easily. PVC, from what I can tell has a better insulation value.



Each rack, material, heat source, room, animal, substrate, tub design, tub size all make a difference.



I wanted to get this in here before someone else makes the mistake I did.



Troy
Troy's Hatchling Rack

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