Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok, i am making a rock wall backing for a texas ratsnake. the backing will be "greatstuff foam" under tile grout. i am making some ledges heated by an internal heating element. my problem is that i dont know what kind of heat element to use. any info on methods of installation and heating would be much appreciated.

The ideal heater would be a heat cable - they are silicon-coated and completely resistant to water. Available through Creative Aquatics, Big Apple and now even ZooMed makes them.

The thing is, foam is an insulator, so I don't know how effective it would be to have a heater inside a foam core. Maybe "Great Stuff" will conduct the heat? Don't know.

Now if you could gluse flat stone to the base of the wall, you could run the heat cable under the stones to heat those.
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Mark

Have flat areas where you can go in later and carve continuous grooves throughout the foam. Slightly wider and deeper than the cable.

Then attach flat stones over the cable and allow the heat to be transmitted through the rock.
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1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.4 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

what about carving out groves and then filling it in with more tile grout .. the grout should still conduct heat and then you would have the same appearence as your original plan and you would not really be able to tell where you cut the trenches

thanks. one tihng im worried about though is that this is a big ratsnake. biggest one i have seen. i would getss 6 amybe 7 foot. that makes for a big heating platform. so i am going to put some support beams in the rocks attached to the backing. also, there is supposed to me some kind of thing you need to coat the grout in i think? i am worried that it wount look like desert rocks and more like volcanic rocks. which would be great for my carpet ut not for him. soltion, i am breaking off pieces of the foam to give it a more "jagged" look. cool, no? also i am gonna make a really cool cave for him, complete with staligtites... you will be able to look through the side of the cave as it will be right on the sie of the tank. then i am putting suculents and things on the sides. he has a little cactus right now but i want to put in more. this tank is gonna bre sweet when its done tho. another thing is its hard to estimate the ammount of foam because it expands in huge ammounts.

I do think the grout over the cable would work. After all, tile grout does go over radiant floor heat in homes.

Personally I would prefer to have easy access to the cable, but that's probably not a huge concern.

There are latex based grout sealers. If you go back through the posts for the last several pages there have been some great threads on this.
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1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

3.4 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

2.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)