Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi. I've been keeping snakes for almost 5 years now and have always used mainly red heat lights as a heat sorce, at the same time as small heating pads for when my snakes digest. I've never ever had a problem with resp. inections. I've been reading other people posts, and what I've gathered, is that a lot of you hardcore (thats a compliment) snake keepers that have years and tons more experience then I, use only heat pads and ditch the lights entirely. I'm just wondering how you keep your ampiant temps where they need to be. In my head, if I were to just use big heat pads, so that the boas body get to a nice and comfortable temp, without a heat light, how can I make sure that the air that they are breathing in is warm enough so that they don't get a r.i. from the air temp in the cage is too cold, even if the heat pads are keeping their bodies warm enough. I hope that this paragraph made sence =)

Also, I have a 75 gallong glass tank that I have 2 '04 females in, and a 20 gallon for my dh sunglow male. Several people are saying to forget about the glass cages and get wood. why??

Thank you!! Sorry this is so long, I'm just trying to learn how to make sure I'm taking the best care of my babies that I can.
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Alone, alone, all, all alone. Alone on a wide, wide sea.
-Rime of the ancient Mariner

Well, a lot of people who use heat pads as the only heating source do not use glass tank cages, but plastic caging or tubs instead.

The reason it is hard to keep ambient temperatures higher with just a heat pad in a glass tank is that glass is a poor insulator. Heat from the pad escapes out the tank walls and through the top (unless you have the top mostly covered and insulated). I've had glass tanks before, I know what you're going through and I had both ceramic heat emitters above the cage and UTH below the floor.

In my plastic cages, with ONLY heat pads, the ambient air temperatures are in the low to mid 80s, and the hot spot right above the heat pad is about 92 (heat pad is on a thermostat). The plastic cage just is insulated better.

You can probably do a few things to have undertank heating be the only method you use in your glass cage - use foam insulation board (or reflectix foil insulation) behind the back of the tank and on the sides of the tank. (And under the tank too if there isn't a solid surface under there, but make sure there is a small air gap so the heat pad doesn't overheat the glass.) Make sure that most of the top of your cage is covered by an insulating material as well, this will help keep in not only heat, but moisture as well. If you have a screen top, covering most of it (leave a little ventilation) will help keep in heat tremendously.

People are probably suggesting to you to get a wood cage because of insulation. Again, glass sucks for keeping heat in. That's why most modern house windows are double-layered with a vacuum space in the middle - because old fashioned single-layer glass windows would leak out all of the heat, and glass tanks are only single-layer glass. However, wooden tanks are a little trickier to heat, you can't necessarily use heat pads under a wooden cage because the heat might not pass all the way through the floor. That's why I love my plastic cages, heat passes well through the floor but the inside retains temperature very well.

Hope this helps. Most people start out with glass cages but wind up building their own or buying plastic caging to help retain more heat. The reason the air doesn't stay heated in a typical glass cage setup is that all the heat escapes out the glass walls and screen top of the cage.
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Lauren Madar
www.ophidiagems.com
1.1 Hog Island Boas
1.1 Hypo BCI
0.1 Sorong-type GTP
1.0 Normal Ball Python
1.1 Surinam BCC

thanx for giving awesome info I needed. Is having a plastic cage better for the snake though?? Can I continue using my glass tank (for the time being of course, while its big enough) or is it healthier to use a plastic one?? I like glass because they look better (my opinion) and it gives my snakes lots of room to move around because they are high and wide.
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Alone, alone, all, all alone. Alone on a wide, wide sea.
-Rime of the ancient Mariner

I used to use lights exclusively, but found that I couldn't really completely win the battle against the dehydration that comes with it.
About the glass, I don't think you're going to kill anything if you're pretty vigilant about the temps. Glass is a really good conductor (but so is plastic). If you get a runaway heat element, that glass'll get really hot.
I used to use these cages and heat them with lights. Now, I use boaphiles and use the undercage heaters that you can get installed on them. With Helix DBS-1000s, I can still get the diurnal temp cycles that I've used for a while.
There are a loot of ways to do things and a lot of them are good. You have options and can work in your personal preferences as well.
Good luck!
Aaron

wow, where did you get that monster vision cage? i thought they weren't making them anymore?!
Thank you for the reasurring info.
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Alone, alone, all, all alone. Alone on a wide, wide sea.
-Rime of the ancient Mariner

I bought it used from a guy in TN.
They still make them though. It's the 433 model. 48 x 28 x 28.
I'm sure you can still find one.
Actually though, I'm using boaphile cages now.
No problem!
Anytime. Sorry about the slow response!
Aaron