Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm planning on building a three level cage out of melamine for kingsnakes. How would I go about heating it? The bottom of one cage will be the roof of the cage below it. Can I actually put the tape directly inside the cage?

Hi there,

I personally would not recommend placing heat tape *inside* an enclosures for safety reasons. If the heat device or controller (thermostat/rheostat/etc.) malfunctions, the safety of your kingsnakes would be seriously compromised. There would also be a pretty hefty fire hazard with substrate and such.

If there *is* space between the levels, you might be able to run a strip of heat tape between them, but a little gap for air is necessary with that option, in my opinion. If there is *no* space between the cage levels you are building, then another possibility might be to run heat tape along the back of your enclosure, although you would sacrifice belly heat for it.

Anyhow, hope this helps.

A better solution is to use a Cobra or Ultratherm heat pad inside the enclosure instead of heat tape. At least with these pads, the electrical connections are sealed. Ultratherms are available at www.beanfarm.com.
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Mark

I decided to make the cage unit as three seperate cages that can be stacked. This way I can leave a small amount of space between the cages for heat tape. I really don't want to put any type of pad directly into the cage. It seems that too many things can go wrong this way.
Thanks for the help. Now I just have start building.