Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Any suggestions on heating tall narrow cages? I'd like heat that doesn't produce light so it can run 24/7, rhp's won't fit b/c i have lights mounted up top. I'd prefer not to use dome lights with black bulbs b/c i'm afraid the snakes will climb up on them since they are aboreals(like the highest warmest place). But i would prefer the heat source at he top of the enclosure. Would a heat pad mounted on the side be effective? Are there any brands that can be screwed to the side or would it have to be taped? Could i silicone flexwatt to the side since water won't sit on a vertical surface? There will be high humidity if that matters.
Thanks

Heat pads are useless in this application. Doesn't matter where you mount them. I have tried. Don't bother, trust me.

Ceramic heat emitters are the way to go if RHPs are too big. You can cut a hole in the top of the cage, screen it, and have the dome sit on top.

I believe Pro-Products makes a small RHP.

CHEs and RHPs heat objects. It is different from lights. Extremely effective. Snakes do great with those heaters.

Your lights can be moved, or replaced with very small lights. Heater is much more important.
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Mark

Its a stack unit so i cant cut holes in the top. The lights are small LEDs so they don't thake up much space. Problem is the cage is 12x16x36 and the RHPs i have are 12x12 so they barely fit and i don;t want the animals to have to go to the floor to cool down. if i could find a 6x6 RHP it would be great
thanks

If I understand you correctly you have a ceiling footprint of 12"x16" and a height of 36".

Mark is right about the heat pads or tape in this application - just forget it, immediately. Conduction (as in contact- or belly-heat) is simply not the right physics. You need radiation, with overhead heat. You say you don't want visual heat, so you need to go invisible, or infra-red (IR).

(I suppose if one were really hung up on conduction for arboreals, one could get cute/fancy with heated perches, using heat tape, heat cable, or heated pumped fluid in some sort of plumbing, but...ugh. Lots of time, some money, and probably you'd scrap the whole idea and come back to IR heat after about 6 months anyway. Maybe after cooking some snake bellies.)

With IR heat, either CHE or RHP is the answer. (Again, Mark is right.) Either one will ABSOLUTELY REQUIRE thermostatic or rheostatic control. RHPs are (to me) nicer to look at because they don't require screening to prevent contact burns. Since you have RHPs already, and for other reasons that will be explained below, I recommend this route for your problem (I'm using that word in an engineering sense, not a pop-pejorative sense. Engineers enjoy problems, they're like a puzzle or brain-game.)

Barring the RHP route, if you wanted to go low-wattage CHE instead you could "just" wire & mount a socket fixture in each cage's insulated (e.g., with reflectix) ceiling, frame out a portion of the top of the cage to hold the LED and CHE, and screen it. You'd probably want a hinged drop-down screen door so you could periodically fuss with the light and heater without ripping your screen (although both CHE and LED are good low-maintenance technologies). If all this crap is above the translucent front (and sides?) of your cage, no problem. Otherwise you're looking at it. Don't know if that's an issue; I wouldn't want to look at it myself. I find the best part of arboreals is the aesthetic plasticity or freedom you have with them - they don't beat hell out of their cages so you can really make a gorgeous habitat for them. I like to hide my plumbing, wiring, etc...

Um...I don't understand you saying you don't want the snakes to go down if they need to cool off. It's what they'll have to do, and they will, trust me. Just ensure there's a gradient. That is super easy with radiant heat and a tall cage (it would be virtually impossible to not have a gradient). You could easily (e.g.) have a 95F basking perch/branch right below the heater, several cooler perches a bit lower, and a substrate surface 30" from the heater that's around 75F (or whatever the ambient room temp is...).

Aside - I find integral cage-stacks a hassle. In the environmental control especially. I prefer to have each cage independently heated and lit (no shared walls or air space), well-insulated, and in a rather cool room. I don't like the temperature of lower cages to drive that of higher cages. In your case some reflectix on the ceiling of the lower cage, and to a lesser extent some deep substrate in the upper cage, might be helpful. (I'm assuming with 36" height you only have 2 cages high.)

Best of luck with this technical situation. In several aspects of their husbandry (housing, environmental control, feeding, human safety) arboreals require a substantially higher level of skill, and more time, care, and dedication than terrestrials in my experience. Keeper mistakes manifest in things like stuck sheds, respiratory ailments, anorexia, obesity, increased experience with veterinary medicine, bitten keepers, etc etc.

Cheers,
Jimi

As for not wanting them to go down to cool i just ment i would like to not have the whole top of the enclosure directly heated by the rhp(looking for a small one). I would prefer the rhp if i can find what i'm looking for. I just got my first few not too long ago and i love them. I still have some cages with the hinge design you are talking about but i want to switch them over due to various problems. The worst is that i have one box that doesn't want to stay tight to the ceiling and the snake keeps climbing up inside of it. It scared the crap out of me cuz i couldnt find the snake (who happens to be a cobra).
My stack is currently 3 cages tall because only one section is for aborials divided into 3 cages. Two are the size i mentioned before and one is three foot wide. The larger section houses 2 amazons and one of the smaller has a eyelash viper in it. One section is waiting for an inhabitant.