Reptile & Amphibian Forums

.....okay.....okay......not exactly......but this IS the epitomy of oozing beauty........just not as curvy and Tommy Lee not included. LOL.

On a side note I've decided on a Frigidaire brand "freezer-less" refrigerator (with some minor modifications in mind) as the "alternative" brumation method. Thanks again to those that contributed to this endeavor both on and off the forum. If I may ask one additional question for those that assisted, what worked best in maintaining ventilation??? I plan to simply open the door daily for a short duration. Thoughts?

Obtaining brumation temps earlier in the fall is something that I've wanted to do for many years. Thanks again fellas.

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Jerry Kruse

And God said, "Let there be zonata subspecies for all to ponder..."

I think you could use a good quality aquarium pump on a timer, with a hose that ran inside, so that it doesn't make the fridge compressor constantly labor because of the warmer air always going inside.

But be warned, if there is an electrical problem, this could cause a big problem too.

I'm pretty sure "Upscale" just kept it ever so slightly cracked open. I'm thinking that this would work pretty well too.

BTW,....It ain't Pamela Anderson, but it's pretty!..LOL!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

That is one good looking snake!

I have used a large wine cooler to brumate snakes over the years. Wine coolers chill as opposed to refrigerate and the built in thermostat is able to control the temps in the 50's unlike a fridge in the 40's. It's also nice that if anything goes wrong electrically the small refridgeration unit doesn't have the power to freeze your snakes. I used a small aquarium air pump to provide air intake twice daily. I also like the window so I don't have to open it up to peak in on the snakes.

Another benefit is the ease of converting it into an incubator when it has done it's job as a brumator.

Nate

I did not keep it cracked open, I’m way too much of a “tinkerer” to settle for that! I ran a really small aquarium air pump into the box. I put an air stone on the end of the aquarium tubing and had it sitting in a small tub with some water in it. The tub had air holes. When the warm air came in, it had to go through the chilled water in the tub, so the air got chilled a bit, it wasn’t just warm air going straight in. It also helped the humidity to make the bubbles too I think. It was on a timer to run for fifteen minutes every six hours or something like that, I don’t really remember. Here’s a picture of the pump I used, it is tied up with a plastic cable tie in the back.

The wine cooler I used was pretty small for just a few snakes. I bagged them and kept them in these small tubs like you see here. The bottom one with the water is the one with the air stone. This worked, even though the snakes had no water bowl. I only brumated them for six weeks total, and was perfect.

You could use a regular refrigerator too, if you get one of these Johnson thermostats to regulate the temps. This thing makes it real accurate. It is normally used to provide exact temps for brewing beer. With the thermoelectric coolers, ambient temps are very critical to what the internal temps will be. On a real cool day, it will cool too far. Just a heads up there.

Johnson Thermostat

Jerry,

I also used the aquarium pump on a timer method. I had the tube coming in, running down the back to the floor, then a coil of about four loops of tubing on the cooler floor. That way the air came in and cooled as it traveled down the tube and around the coil before coming out the end of the hose.

I had the timer set to pump air for one hour every four hours. This seemed to maintain chilled temps very well and provide plenty of air exchange. I also had anothe tube exiting the chamber on top with a one way valve on it. That provided a pressure outlet without letting backflow warm air in. That way the door seal would stay tight. Good luck this season.

Craig

PS. I would go the wine cooler route as opposed to refrigerator also. Much more temperature management ability.
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God Bless Evolution.

It's interesting no one's started a business to provide this solution to herpers. There are, after all, a lot of us. And there are multiple companies offering caging solutions, hideboxes, lighting, and other hardware. Yet everyone's left to come up with individual solutions to what's a pretty universal need. I know people in the north need only limit how cold it gets in their brumation rooms. But for people wanting to start early, like Jerry, or the many of us in the south, it'd be nice to have small (wine cooler size) solutions AND someone who knew how to engineer larger units to properly cool whole rooms.

Seems like a good opportunity for someone with the right skillset.

Here’s an interesting project I started working on a year ago. The fake rock ledge in this cage hides a thermoelectric “cool spot”.

Here is a picture with the covering removed. It’s like a hard shell.

The angled part allows for the cooling fins that transfers the heat. It’s a computer chip cooler. The hot air vents out the back of the cage in that corner. This shows the whole thing and shelf removed from the cage.

Under the cooling tower is the actual TEC chip. It goes through the shelf to a big chunk of aluminum on the underside of the shelf, the cool sink.

Here’s what is mounted up under the shelf facing the floor. The little hard drive cooling fans are mounted to the aluminum cool sink.

The idea is a snake can (literally) chill out under the rock ledge in the cage, which provides about a six degree cooler spot in the cage. It isn’t big enough to actually refrigerate the cage, just provide the spot cool.

I think it’s pure genius, but I haven’t perfected it yet. My snake room gets up to 90 degrees, so I have always had a desire to invent a “cool tape” instead of heat tape, or something like that. I may have a small hide box cave someday that provides a cool spot, just like a snake finding a cool little hole in the rocks. Pretty “cool”, huh?

Here’s an earlier version without the bigger heat transfer tower, shows how the back corner of the cage is cut out to vent the heat.

Actual six degree difference under the shelf to other side of the cage. Life saver.

On going experiment, wish me luck.

Thanks for looking

Hey, that is some very cool tinkering!.

Hopefully you can find a way to cool it even more,....that is still on the pretty warm side as I'm sure you already know.

Good luck with further future refinement!

Isn't it funny how easy it is to heat things, but a pain in the butt to cool things,,LOL!

I have a similar problem where I now live too, but have managed to figure out a "balancing act" for this in the hot summer months.

later!, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

amen. choices for herp focused incubators are slim (hovabators work ok for small clutches, but I'm dubious about larger clutches) and choices for burmation are non existant. For those of us who keep herps in our house--in my case, int he computer room--we need something besides just leaving windows open...