Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Do you heat the whole room ? If so what temp ? I just finished my room and decided to heat the whole thing to 80-82 degree's. I purchased the Helix 1500w system with a night drop and thats set at 74. Its being heated via a oil filled electric heater. The room is in my basement so the heater is necessary even in the summer months. I know one solid temp isnt the most natural thing for reptiles but neither is living in a box. Look forward to hearing what works well for others.

Keith
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Keith,
I keep my snakes in a sunroom. I have blinds over every window so no cage gets lit up but the room is still very light. No lights in the room so natural light cycles. The room gets pretty warm (86 F) during the warmest part of the day. The nights down to low 70's. I have under tank heaters on the boa constrictor and carpet python cages. The door is kept open 24/7. My living room attaches it and the a/c is on out here. There is no a/c vent in the room. I keep the colubrids close to the door for the slightly cooler temps. I was planning on getting the oil filled heater for winter and the thermostat sounds good. What brand oil filled heater are you using? But I graduate school in 3 weeks and will probably be moving very soon.

Dan

Delonghi Advanced Oil-Filled Radiator Heater. It was around 50-60 bucks.

Keith
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What brand oil filled heater are you using?

I don't know that the brand is all that important. What is most important is that you buy a separate reliable thermostat to control the heater. I use Rancos, but Helix will do just fine as well. Make sure the thermostats are rated for the wattage of the heater!

I know of two cases where someone lost thousands of dollars of irreplaceable snakes due to the built in thermostat on the oil heater failing and the heater heating the snake room up to over 100°F. Losing a whole collection of snakes this way is disheartening, to say the least.
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Chris Harrison

I just built a Reptile Room which is part of our New House. The outside door & one window face West and and in Central Texas raises the temps in the room to close to 85 at about 4:00pm. I have strived to aquire colubrids that are hardy enough to handle alittle warmer conditions to accomiodate my Chondro colony. All Chondros have flexwatt/Helix on their cages to keep close to 85 degrees. The easterns, brooksi, Hogs and rats have no other heat.....and all are thriving. I also have two Oil filled heaters to raise the temps during the fall/winter.

I do recommend putting a separate thermostat on the Oil filled heaters, I have heard that they can loose their internal themostat regulator and boil the room along with leak oil when oil/broke. Ken

We have a specific reptile room. In the summer it is not airconditioned, and stays about 82 during the day and goes down to about 74 by the early morning. In the winter we heat it to 78-80 during the day with a space heater on a timer. The space heater is timed from about 6am-6pm, and has a built in thermostat. The night drop sometimes gets down to 68-70 on the really cool nights. I live in Philly. I have had success for the last two breeding seasons with this setup.

Our reptile room is a 3rd bedroom/nursury room that is probably about 9x12" and has two wooden shelves for glass tanks, one hatchling rack, one multiple enclosure, one chest of drawers for supplies, and one kithchen cabinet and counter-top. The counter top is great for preparing food, medical evaluations, and stuff like that.

We have a couple display tank around the house and rotate our adult stock every once in a while to the family room or the office for a change.

Biggest downfall: In the summer, when it is 90 outside, it really sucks cleaning cages in 82° heat. I usually wait until later at night to clean cages to avoid the heat of mid day.

I have gotten pretty used to this setup, and when I buy my next house, I will definately be looking for a place with an extra room to keep my herps.

We just setup our snake room in a spare bedroom of my girlfriends house. I still have to add some more shelves to fit the rest of the cages we are getting. I went the tank route for now because I dont have time to build a cage system and I dont like keeping them in steralite containers. We have the A/C blocked off to the room, the temps vary from about 84 in the day to 78 at night. We have a small heater with a thermostat for when winter comes. the room is completely sealed including a door sweep guard in case of any escapees.

to keep the room cool. That way, the animals can use the basking areas to warm up, and escape to a cooler part of the cage when they like. My room is a spare bedroom, and the AC vent is open, making the day temps in the mid 70's and the night temps in the upper 60's. I keep quite a few Mt. Kings, and they prefer cooler temps, but I also have some boas, and they just use the warm part of the cage when they get cold. If you don't plan on using basking lights or something to create a thermal gradient, then keeping the room at temps the snakes like should be fine, but I'd keep an eye on them during the first several weeks to watch for signs of.....not heat stress, but more like "lack of thermal variety options" stress.

Hey Bro,

My snakeroom is being constructed in my basement next week in the new house. I am going to cut a vent in the heating ductwork that runs through the area to help heat the room in the winter time. I will also heat all of the cages individually with Flex Watt heat tape set on dimmers. The snakes are in their enclosures in the basement now at about 70 F ambient with the Flex Watt heating the basking sites to the low-mid 80's. All of the kings & ball pythons are eating and digesting just fine even with the rather cool ambient temps. Later.

Will

I have my garage sealed and snake proofed. Temp is kept in 76-82F range.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I recently bought a 12x16 portable building and converted to a snake room. I've insulated it and placed a window unit AC in it. I keep it around 80 degrees. As all I have now are colubrids, I don't have to worry about heating each cage. I'll use a space heater this winter. I'm in Florida, so I won't have to worry too much about cold, although we do have some freezing temps.

Todd

I heat my reptile room with electric baseboard heaters controled by a thermostat set at 82 degrees during the day and 78 at night. I also have several rack systems by Boaphile and Animal Plastics in the room set at 86 for my boas.

n/p

The former owner had converted his garage into a "family room."
With it's air conditioner/wall heater, all I had to do was install a sink, hang posters, etc. to create my own reptilian haven. I try to keep the ambient temp around 82-84, supplying additional heat or waterbowls as needed per species. Has worked well for over a year now.
regards,
althea

Your wife must be very happy to get those smelly snakes off the living level - lol.
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Tim

that is kept at room temp. Since it is predominately filled with 6' high rack systems we have heat tape intergrated into each rack. We had at one time tried only using a higher room heat (82-84) degrees but found it better to let the snakes find for themseleves thier comfort zone. We are now though going completely toward belly heat with the intention of giving the herps a better heat gradient to choose from.

Best Regards, Rich Hebron