Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Im planning on building 15-18 cages that have the demensions of 121/2 x 36 x 18 and Im not sure how I'm gona heat them. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Mike

Hi there!
A lot of it depends on your preferrence of heating styles - overhead or belly heat. Price would be the next factor.

Most people use belly heat in the form of heat tape/flexwatt. It's usually installed in a routed out section of the floor. This obviously doesn't take up any extra space the way overhead heating products can. There's also other ways to install flexwatt. You can also use heat mats (Kane makes good ones from what I've heard). These don't require additional cage modifications but they're not cheap.

For overhead heat you can use radiant heat panels (pricey, but very effective), CHEs (Cermaic Heat Emitters), lights, and a few other options. The thing with overhead heat is they either need to be placed inside a protective guard within the cage or set on top of the cage. Some people have made the tops that house their overhead heat sources as an extra enclosed space so cages can still be stacked.

The type of overhead heating to use can depend on how much heat you're going to need to provide. Factors determining this are: suggested temps for the species, environment of the cage location, etc...

The Cage and Habitat Forum is a good place to help you sort through everything. When posting there be sure to include all that you did here, plus, the species and room conditions of where the cages will be. Here's the link to that forum > forums.kingsnake.com/forum.php?catid=4

Take care!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

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