Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here’s a question for those of you that have a separate dedicated room for your animals. How do you heat? Do you heat each tub? Do you heat only the room? Or do you do both?

We know many of the big breeders heat the entire room and provide no supplemental heat for the tubs and have great success. I’m just curious to know how the smaller breeders and hobbyists’ heat their rooms’.

I’m currently in the process of building a dedicated room solely for my animals. And was thinking to heat the entire room verse each tub. This would cut down on the cords/extension cords and be cheaper to heat. Say one oil radiator 800-1200w for the room…sized at 3.5m x 5m room (17.5sqm) with a ceiling of 2.6m.

I would really appreciate any feedback from those that have dedicated reptile rooms.

Thanks in advance!

Pitoon
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Homepage
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2010 European Shows

We keep the room 72 or so with a space heater. (house is usually at 68 or 70 during cold months. We also have heat tape in the racks to keep there hot spots at an appropriate temprature.

If you only heat the room and have no additional heat on the tubs you wouldn't have a heat gradiant for them to regulate their temprature.

So in your case you are doing both….as in heating the room and supplying supplemental heat per tub.

What I want to know is who is just heating their rooms only…..and not supplying additional heat to the tubs/cages.

If the bigger breeders are doing it with good results…..i don’t see why any smaller breeder can’t do the same….

In sense of energy savings, it would be quite a savings to just use an oil radiator to heat an entire room verse using heat mats per tub.

Pitoon

>>If you only heat the room and have no additional heat on the tubs you wouldn't have a heat gradiant for them to regulate their temprature.>>
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Homepage
My BLOG
2010 European Shows

Here is a video I recently did for youtube. It will explain how I have set up my snake den.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVAfriONBOM

The best of luck

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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

Nice!
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1.0 Albino American alligator, "Smoke"
1.1 American alligator,"Al Bite Ya & Molly"
1.1 Purple Albino Reticulated Pythons, "Gumbo & Abita"
0.1 Eastern Gaboon Viper, "Gabbie" Recently passed away at 24 years old
Help me find this snake!

Very nice Brian!
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Cheers,
Jessica Gibbs
Ball Pythons; Corn Snakes; Green Tree Python; Jungle Carpet Python; Bci; Bcl; Bco
3.0 Crazy Dogs and 2.0 cats
Some Tropical Fish
...........and growing!

Brian,
ok so you are another smaller breeder that uses both radiator heater and tub heat in conjuction.

question-do you find that the flexwatt turns on less, since you have the radiator on...since the room is at a constant temp.

Pitoon

>>Here is a video I recently did for youtube. It will explain how I have set up my snake den.
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVAfriONBOM
>>
>>The best of luck
>>
>>-----
>>Brian Gundy
>>
>>www.for-goodness-snakes.com
>>
>>
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Homepage
My BLOG
2010 European Shows

Pitoon,

Yes the flex watt turns on less because I'm using the space heater.

If I didn't use the space heater to controll the ambient room temperature the flex watt would turn on and try to drive more heat to the racks. My concern would be if you didn't controll the room tamp with another source that the gradiant temps between highs and lows would be too drastic. Another way to say it would be. If I didn't use the space heater in my snake den, there would be times that the cold spot in my tubs would get too cold. Because I controll the ambient room temps I know that my snake room will never get below 77 degrees F. That's very important to me.

I hope that makes sense.

Good luck
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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

This is what happens when you use a cheap heater with no thermostat to heat a room. A customer of mine showed this to me today and he was devistated. He lost all his hold back milks and rats. He had his adults in another room cooling so no of those were lost.

Best of luck
Ocean gallery Pets
Craig Ost

I forgot to add this: the room over heated, He said that he had bought some kind of heater with a digital built in thermostat. I use a oil heater with a helix thermo.

It must have been a small room or a big heater. I run my oil heaters on low, with a Johnson t-stat.

He did not want to talk about it that much. His voice was all horse probably from yelling (not sure). I am pretty sure his room is tiny maybe 7 foot by four foot. He said the temp was around 110 degrees. He then began to tell me about how he should of never bought this new heater. I think the heater was one of those ceramic blowers with the digital thermo. We got busy so I wasn't able to talk to him. I did snap a picture with my good camera of all the snakes. The other pic is from my phone. I just bought the skylink auto dialer and two temp monitors from reptile basics to alert me if my temps get to hot or to cold in my personal collection.

Ocean Gallery
Craig Ost

I lost the hognose in my signature pic because of a faulty air conditioner. I opened the door and was met with a blast of heat. I know its a different set of circumstances but I can only imagine how devastated someone could be losing that many prized specimens.
My condolences.
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1.0 Albino American alligator, "Smoke"
1.1 American alligator,"Al Bite Ya & Molly"
1.1 Purple Albino Reticulated Pythons, "Gumbo & Abita"
0.1 Eastern Gaboon Viper, "Gabbie" Recently passed away at 24 years old
Help me find this snake!

A customer recently contacted me asking if it was ok...or safe to use a ventless "blueflame" style heater for his snake room.

I use the oil filled radiator style heaters on a helix thermostat....I also provide belly heat via flex-watt on a helix.

I know very little about the ventless blueflame heaters.
So I was not able to answer his question with any certainty.
What I do know is:
They are a gas heater with a built in thermostat...but you could also use them with an external thermostat. They are supposed to be very efficient to run...not too expensive to buy... and they are very low profile, (saving floorspace is always a plus).

I have read that they will put more humidity into the room, which sounds good...especially if you live in a dry climate.

However, I have to wonder, what else do they put into the air?
Do any of you use these ventless blueflame style heaters?
Please post a reply if you use them for supplemental home heat...and especially if you have experience using them in your reptile room. I am looking for opinions from people who have had experience with them.

Thank you in advance for your info.
Harlin Wall - WALL TO WALL REPTILES!
970-255-9255
970-245-7611

Harlan,
I use the ventless gas heater, and have had for 3 years now.
Never had a problem with it, I have a Box fan going 24/7, to spread the heat around in my snake room.

I do use additional heat for some of my arboreal Asian pitvipers, and these consist of a 25 watt bulb on timers.

Hey Randal,

Thanks for the info...that is the type of input I was seeking.
Glad to hear these heaters are safe to use.
I will pass this info on to my customer.

By the way it is always nice to hear from you.
You know how I feel about those Arboreal Asians!!!
Hope all is going well for you.
Give me a call sometime and we'll catch up.
Take care.

Your friend,
Harlin Wall - WALL TO WALL REPTILES!
970-255-9255
970-245-7611

I use ceramic heaters....
wife whined the oil filled radiator used too much electricity...?
I use one ceramic set and in winter one set around 82 chest level and one running all the time...
I do NOT run 1500 watt...I run only 1000 watt per heater....
I have done this for 20s.....
they are setting on a stainless steel steam table pans....on a cement floor.....not wood not carpet....above water .....yes basement leaks at times....balls love the humidity....

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......JY

can you post pics of your set up?

Pitoon

>>I use ceramic heaters....
>>wife whined the oil filled radiator used too much electricity...?
>>I use one ceramic set and in winter one set around 82 chest level and one running all the time...
>>I do NOT run 1500 watt...I run only 1000 watt per heater....
>>I have done this for 20s.....
>>they are setting on a stainless steel steam table pans....on a cement floor.....not wood not carpet....above water .....yes basement leaks at times....balls love the humidity....
>>
>>....
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>>......JY
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Homepage
My BLOG
2010 European Shows

no pics....3 cameras and a vid recorder...someday I'll figure them out and actually use them....LOL

....all it is is a room in cellar with racks all the way around and a ceramic heater setting on a steel pan on the floor.....running....24 x 7 x 365 days a year.....2 in winter....

.///.......heaters...K-Mart....$25......
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......JY

I have a ceiling fan turned on low. I also have a super long base board heater it is hooked up to a digital thermometer.

my room stays 82 year round with no problems at all. every snake sheds, eats, mates wonderfully. No cables to get tangled on - No flex watt to replace - no extra thermostats.

Made simple for a simple person. Bonuses = saves on the electricity bill, easy to clean room, less wires and cords = more space to walk and for more tubs and racks, also I dont need 100 plug ins or extension cords.

since I do not have 20 plug ins in my snake room I was also able to run some pipe from the rest room to my snake room and add a sink for cleaning purposes.

...unasked question but just to be sure, you keep your room at 82 with no supplemental heat on the individual racks/cages? Is that right?

I had been thinking about going to room heat but really did not know what temp to target. As it is, I keep the room at 77 with an oil heater and use heat rope to supplement individual boxes. The room in the summer, however, gets up to about 85+/- so at that point the room heater shuts off anyway.

Maybe I'll try the room heat. Thanks for the info.

Rob

I mainly just use a room heater for my snake room..keep it in the mid 80's and things are great. Eat, Shed, Poop, Breed...no issues.

I do have secondary heat for some of the cages I may use from time to time but mostly I just use the room heater.