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Worlds fastest built incubator.Talk about stress when I saw those eggs.Lucky I had the helix and heat tape on hand, then a quick trip to the hardware store.The digital thermometer/ humdidty guage sucks.Humdidity is way off.Well can only wait to see what pops out if I get lucky.
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Ethan,great effort.However I would make another incubator.A.S.A.P.You should put the heat tape on the bottom and suspend a rubbermaid with the moist vermiculite and a lid to maintain the humidity above the heat.Mark all the eggs with a marker before you move them so that you can place them exactly the same way.It is CRUCIAL that the heat is even and sourrounds the eggs from all sides.The heat tape in your incubator is not heating the vermiculate properlly.
ake sure you put a lid on the rubbermaid to maintain humidity and open the container every other day to let new air in.Good Luck

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Ashley Lopez's Black Forest Constrictors.
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I copied Rich Crowleys design the only thing different is he had a plastic lid so when you opened the top lid you were still able to observe the eggs without loosing heat and humidity.I'll stick my probe in the sub and see what it reads and go from there.Thanks for looking out for me, that will suck if I loose any because of this.

Do not run the heat tape under the eggs through the vermiculite for several reasons. Safety is the key issue here and water and electricity do not mix. The incubator design I use keeps the electrical contacts away from the water and away from the eggs. With the heat tape on the top of the incubator, convection of heat allows the heat to flow throughout the incubator and you still get an even flow of temperature. Do not overlap heat tape and keep the sensor probe near the eggs since this is where you need to control the temperature. You really do not need much heat tape in the incubator since it should be sealed. The acrylic inner cover should be used so air can be exchanged without loss of humidity or tempeture. I have two thermometers in my design and they take readings from different ends of the incubator. If you run the heat tape under the vermiculite you will get uneven heat distribution below the eggs and above. This could lead to excessive heating of the eggs and ultimately egg death. Trust me on this I hatched a couple hundred eggs this way, both STP and Ball Python with great success.

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Thanks for clearing that up Rich, first timer and all.

I guess this isnt the most clear picture. But I used the cooler method as well. I simply put the heat tape all the way around the TOP of the container and then the probe for the thermometer (white line) on one side of the rubbermaid which was placed in the cooler and the probe for the helix (black line) on the other side. So witht he heat all the way around the top on all sides with the eggs on the outside of edges of the rubbermaid container they where all the same distance away from the tape. Not that it would have really mattered since it was indirect heat though. I also filled the bottom up with water to keep the humidity up without over wetting the vermiculite. I put a piece of plexi on top as well to keep it constant. This seems to have worked perfect. I was checking atleast once a day and had a constant temp of 89-90 and humidity at 84-85 the entire 60 days. This is also without having to wipe the sides of the container as I never noticed any condensation build up nor did I have a speck of mold on the eggs. Looks like one egg was infertile to begin with but all 10 others hatched out. I also didnt mark the eggs when I removed them because they moved around when I was removing the female as she didnt put them in her nest box and spread a few around the cage anyways. However she couldnt have been on them for more than 4 hours or so, so I think I lucked out with that one. This is just how I did it, definately not an expert but I put alot of thought into it, and it seems to have worked very well. Hope that helps, only thing I plan on changing is putting more tape around the heat tape to keep the snakes out when the hatch and make it easier to remove the rubbermaid... and maybe a larger cooler next season

Jordan
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

This might help a little, you cant see much though

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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior