Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm exploring heating options for my new cages, and someone suggested an interesting idea that I've never see done.

The idea is to put a large, deep tub of water on the cage floor, with a submersible water heater in it. You put a piece of egg crate over it so the snake can't get to it.

This keeps humidity high and creates a lot of warm heat (the warm area would be near the bottom, a perch above the water tub).

Adequate ventilation is, of course, required.

Has anyone tried this?

be careful as if there is a short in the heater you could possibly shock your snake-if you go this route use the titanium heaters that are plastic coated(stealth is the name of them) they are unbreakable and have short protection where they will turn off in case of a problem...I have used stainless steel basins in the past with UTH on the bottoms of them with no problems,but now find using a larger than neccessary UTH under the actual tank and placing the water bowl(ceramic) right over top of it does the job just fine...be careful here also as if it is a glass bottom tank and water spills it can crack the glass.

I never tried it, but I think the water would have to be too warm in order to keep the cage close to 82F or so..
Heating from below might not work as hot air goes up and the animal might feel very stressed if it cant hide from the warm airflow comming from below.

The water level would have to closely monitored as well.. Aquarium heater will burn if dry, increasing the risk of a fire.

Suspended water cups would also be necessary in order to provide cool drinking water.

Perhaps it is quite of a trouble, but if it saves a lot of money then it could be worth.
Im not so sure it saves money as you would still have to use thermostats..