Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So after looking at the house we're about to move into I've decided that I don't really have the room to build the large cage that I wanted to. I'm planning on building a cage that will house 6-8 snakes, all of which will be boas or pythons. I wanted it to be a minimum of 4ft long and 2ft deep and probably around 6 feet high. But this would be very difficult to fit in our room so now I'm thinking about putting it in the garage instead. Since I wouldn't be limited by space I could make the cage even bigger. But I'm worried about temperature in the garage. We usually keep the house around 65 but the garage has no heat I have no control over the temperature of the garage. I live in California so it's not like we have uber cold winters, but it will drops down to the low 40's or occasionally 30's at night so the garage can get pretty cold. But we are planning on putting some carpet in the garage which will help a little. I'm thinking if I get the cage set up and monitor the temps for a few days before moving the snakes in I'll be okay. Has anyone ever kept their setup in the garage before? Is it doable with a good setup and vigilance?

It should work as long as you got strong enough heat sources and a GOOD thermostat

Can you recommend a good thermostat? Since there are going to be 6-8 individual sections I would like to get one that can take more than one device. The only one I've seen so far that can do this is the "Zoo Med ReptiTemp 500R" but it's quite a bit cheaper than the other ones so I'm not sure of it's quality...

If you scroll through the earlier post there are alot of people who have given there opinions. Thats probably your best bet if you want to know what alot of people think

I've browsed through some of the posts below and I think I'm going to try the "Big Apple Desert Rays Radiant Heat Panel" and see if that is enough for a cage that will be 4x2. My only concern is the cool side getting too cool. So I'm also thinking about getting the "Intellitemp Reptile Heat Mat" and putting that on the "cool" side during the winter just to keep it from getting too cool. Does that sound like it might work or am I going crazy because I'm stressed out from moving, finals, and trying to design a new home for my babies?

Lia is correct, the garage becoming an oven in the summertime should be more of a concern. I've lived in the Bay Area and kept my animals in the garage the entire 14 years I've been keeping reptiles. The only time I've lost any is the late July to early September timeframe when temps can get up to 110F, which can put your garage at 125F or so.

I keep Kings & Corns. All of my cages have both flexwatt and incandescent lights. The lights only come on when the ambient temp in the garage drops below 60F. For your Boids, I agree with the person who suggested an RHP.

These are what I use for temp control http://www.bigappleherp.com/BAH-1000-Thermostat.

Hope this helps.

Wayne

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You know, there's a million fine looking women in the world, dude. But they don't all bring you lasagna at work. Most of 'em just cheat on you.

Wont the garage be a lethal oven come mid summer?

I would think heating in winter isnt the problem but preventing killer temps in summer would be.

In my room the insulation goes a long ways toward keeping the heat out as well as keeping it in. I also have two "backup" systems. A oil filled radient heater I use in the colder parts of winter and a portable room air conditioner for the heat of the summer. In most cases neither are required, last summer I never turned on the AC.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (05/26/2009):
36.51 BRB
29.42 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Yup. With proper insulation it should be no problem. Even when it's over 100* outside here my heaters have to run a bit in the summer to keep temps up. But I have the added benefit of my garage being built into a steep hill, so it's nearly a basement garage.
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Currently keeping:

3.5.5 Gonyosoma oxycephalum (Javan, mixed colors)
0.0.3 Rhynchophis boulengeri
0.2 Lampropeltis triangulum multistriata
0.2 Lampropeltis triangulum gaigeae
0.0.3 Rhamphiophis rubropunctatus
1.1.1 Morelia viridis (Aru & Merauke locale types)
1.0 Morelia clastolepis
1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback

A lot of people keep their herps in the garage for one reason or another. Chris and Dave who post here both have setup's in the garage. However both are in dedicated rooms.

IMO the dedicated room is the ideal situation and the garage can be the best spot for that. In fact when I build my house in the next few years, my Reptile facility will adjoin my shop.

I don't know what your particular setup in the garage is. Weather it be a single car, 2 car or muilti car or if is standard depth or larger. However adding a makeshift room to a garage isn't all that hard and can easily be removed in the advent you sell your home. Its even possible to do so in a rental, although a bit more difficult and in most cases you need the landlords permission.

In many cases you may find the newly added reptile room can be shared with other hobbies. High humidity and above average temps make well fro a growing room, or a fish room. I can tell you living in Southern California its easier to add a room to the garage than lets say North Dakota...LOL. Although its not without its own challenges.

Either way cage in a garage or cage in a room in the garage you can make it work. IMO its easier to heat the room between 70°-75° and then heat each cage to appropriate temps than to heat the cages alone.

I can tell you living in North Dakota my garage maintains temps above 55° even when temps fall into the -30's. So its possible to do what you want its how you want to do it that is the question.

First you need to decide weather you are a heat the cage or heat the room kinda keeper.
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Jeremy Payne
JB Reptile

1.0 Snow "Kahl"
0.2 Triple Het Moonglow "Kahl"
0.1 Orange Tail Hypo Het Leopard
0.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow
1.0 Ghost
0.1 Possible Super Hypo
0.1 DH Ghost
1.1 "Kahl" Albino
1.0.2 Hypomelenistic
1.3 Pastel Hypo
0.1 Anerthrystic
0.0.3 Normal

1.1 Morelia Clastolepis

LOL,log in and find my name being bandied about... Hey Jeremy, hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

Like Jeremey said, I built a dedicated room in the garage. Have a three car garage with two garage doors. Carved the room out of the single car side. I insulated the external walls and added internal walls also well insulated. Lastly I insulated the ceiling and sheetrocked everything. Both sides of the internal walls, the interior side of the external walls and the ceiling. Also installed a door but due to floor slope it does not seal well at the floor. The garage door was already one of the newer models with insulation so was good to go.

With all that, the room stays plenty warm enough most of the time. Only in the colder parts of the winter do I turn on my room heater. BTW, am also in CA, SF bay area.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (05/26/2009):
36.51 BRB
29.42 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

After talking to a few people this is my plan. I'm going to run 11" flexwatt heat tape across the bottom of all the cages. It's going to be connected to a thermostat of course and it's going to be set at whatever the "cool" side of the tank should be. So for most of my guys this is about 76-80 degrees. I'm going to put a piece of plexiglass on top of the tape to separate it from the tank. Then on the hot side I'm going to put heating bulbs either on a dimmer switch or on a thermostat to make it a bit warmer on that side. I decided to use heating bulbs because I want to give the snakes a day/night cycle and it will be easy to set up and maintain.

Also a few people suggested that I might have a more difficult time regulating temperature doing the summer. I live in Sonoma County in California and our summers don't usually get that hot. So for the few days that we get in the triple digits I can use a portable air conditioner. Our garage is also covered by trees so it doesn't get any direct sun. I'm sure I'll have to experiment a little next summer but trust me, keeping the temperatures up is going to be a lot more difficult then keeping them down : (

And know I'm off to care for my ball python who I just discovered has mites : (

>>I'm going to put a piece of plexiglass on top of the tape to separate it from the tank.
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Mark

My advice is to not cover the heater with acrylic. What is the reason you want to cover the heater? Perhaps we can help with an alternate method.
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Mark

I've never used heat tape before so I just assumed that you didn't want to put substrate directly on top. I was also concerned with water and of course snake waste coming into contact with the heat tape. Any other suggestions for preventing this or am I worrying about something that I shouldn't be worrying about : )

Another thing about heat tape is it works better within an air gap. Its allows the heat to dissipate evenly over the surface avoiding hot spots, and if vented can allow excess heat to escape.

Also it has the uncanny ability to transmit heat in both directions, so utilizing a radiant barrier under the tape is another promising approach.

By far the best application of heat tape is actually placing it in a shallow relief. Either where the bottom was cut out and laminated with a thin material. Or in a hollow recess between a thin material and a solid cage bottom. Either way a thin sheet of solid plastic or fiberglass transmits heat better than any wood core product.
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Jeremy Payne
JB Reptile

1.0 Snow "Kahl"
0.2 Triple Het Moonglow "Kahl"
0.1 Orange Tail Hypo Het Leopard
0.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow
1.0 Ghost
0.1 Possible Super Hypo
0.1 DH Ghost
1.1 "Kahl" Albino
1.0.2 Hypomelenistic
1.3 Pastel Hypo
0.1 Anerthrystic
0.0.3 Normal

1.1 Morelia Clastolepis

So I should put something on the wood floor and then put the heat tape on top of that. Then put plexi-glass on top of the heat tape, but I should use something (I'm thinking rubber feet) to leave a little gap between the tape and the plexi.

If that is correct I have a few questions -

Can you recommend something to put between the wood and the heat tape?

Is there something better than plex-glass that I can be using? Preferably cheaper : )

How much of a gap should be between the heat tape and plexi-glass to allow good heat distribution? 1/8 inch? 1/4 inch?

Thanks a lot!

Oh, you were planning on putting it inside the wood cage? That is generally a no-no with Flexwatt.

A better choice for an inside cage heater is an Ultratherm heat mat. They have a sealed electrical connection and a thicker plastic coating.

What Jeremy was saying was about placing the Flexwatt under the cage bottom. It will heat through wood but is not good for plywood or pine. For melamine it is OK to heat through the material.

If using melamine, you probably want to use a router and recess a groove under the cage into the bottom so the heat tape can fit in there and heat through a thinner thickness of the melamine. Put the cage on spacers to allow some airflow under the cage so excess heat can escape. That is the air gap he was talking about. Those heavy-duty felt pads they sell for furniture work very well to elevate the cage a bit.

Or cutout a rectangle in the cage bottom and cover with expanded PVC plastic, then attach the heater to that.

I forgot what you were keeping in the cage. If a snake, consider a radiant heat panel and forget all this heat tape complexity. Heat tape in a wood cage is a pain (unless the cage is melamine, then router a groove and you are good, but not inside the cage.)
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Mark

Just when I thought I had it figured out you two had to go and complicate it : ) I think what I'm going to do is construct the cages and set up the two heat lamps in each cage. I want to use heat lights because I want day/night cycle and I think lights are easy to control. So I'll do a dry run and I'll see what the temperatures are in the cage. The two bottom sections are going to house jungle carpet pythons and the 3 upper sections are going to house a red tail boa and two ball pythons. I'm wondering how much the heat from the cage below will heat the cage above. At the moment I have a ten gallon sitting on top of our chinese water dragon cage and the temperature at the bottom of the cage is 78-80 degrees without any heat mat on the bottom!

So using heat tape in a wood cage is not a good idea... darn. I would love to get some radiant heat panels but they are way out of my budget : ( In a couple years I might start switching over to them but I can't do it at the moment.

I just ordered 6 more RHPs.They are definatly worth it. I get them for about $60 each and they will last for alot longer than the bulbs. They dont take alot of space in your cage and you don't have to worry about your animals getting burned. I've tried just about everything else and this is definatly the way to go.

What size would be appropriate for a 4x2 size cage? They will range in height from 12 to 18inches. Do they help provide any gradient temperature? I'm worried about the cool side being too cold...

In general, the 40Watt RHP (about 11x11 inches in size) is fine for a 4x2 cage unless the air in the room is really cold.

The ball pythons and carpets will be fine with a single panel in all likelyhood.

A large boa may need more heated area if the room is cold.

Of course, you can always add an incadescent light fixture in the boa cage. You can use this when room temps dip too low, and leave it off the rest of the time.

RHPs radiate heat downward into objects below. The effect is that an animal below adjusts the time spent under the heater. If the snake moves off just a little, it can fine-tune the desired heat it needs. My point here is that the temperature gradient is better with an RHP than with a heat pad. So be glad you are going to scrap the Flexwatt idea. Flexwatt is great for boids in heated rooms where a slightly higher temp basking area is needed, or for kingsnakes and milksnakes and such in cool rooms. But for boids in unheated rooms, RHPs are great.

I consider a 40 watt RHP to heat an area like two 50 watt spot bulbs. So RHPs are more efficient. Over the course of a year that may be $30-$60 or more not spent in energy usage for 3 cages.
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Mark

Okay I'm sold on the RHP's. Do you have any opinion on these -http://www.bigappleherp.com/Big-Apple-Desert-Rays-Radiant-Heat-Panels

I'm thinking of trying one of them in the shorter cages and using RHP's in the taller ones. From what I've heard of them they don't radiate heat as well as RHP's but they're okay for small cages...

Insulating the cage and the floor where the cage sits will help with the cold ambient temps.

The problem is during hot weather. Depending on the direction the garage faces, how much ventilation it has, where you live, etc, temps in the garage can be brutal in August and September.
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Mark