Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 4x2x2' wooden cage and I have a pair of boas I want to breed. The cage is heated by a light bulb connected to a timer. Now to breed what do any of you suggest I change for instance should I use heat tape or something instead of bulb do I need to get thermostat. I was thinking heat tape and $30 thermastat. Would I be safe with just thermostat or do I need dimmer also. This should be a pic of the cage which is on the bottom

I would not worry about using heat tape if the overhead heater is sufficient to keep the cage and boas at proper temps. Is it? You tell us what temps you see.

In general, I have found the following formula to work well in a cage that size in an UNHEATED room:

1. On one end of the cage, use a light fixture like you have with a 75 or 100 watt red heat lamp on a dimmer, and run that through a thermostat to protect against overheating. Depending on the height of the cage, you may have to adjust the wattage of the bulb.

2. On the opposite end of the cage, install another light fixture with a lower wattage heat lamp or halogen light or whatever. This is simply to keep the cool end of the cage at least at 75 deg. I wouldn't use a thermostat for this bulb, since it shouldn't be high enough wattage to heat the whole cage to dangerous temps.

As long as the basking boa can see low 90s deg F at one end of the cage, then you don't need heat tape.

If you decide to use heat tape, do one of the following:
1. Put a dimmer in-line with the heater and run that through your $30 thermostat; or

2. Buy a proportional thermostat for your heat tape. This gives the best control for non light-emitting heaters. No worries with this kind of controller. Big Apple sells a nice one for around $110 or so, and it works much better than choice 1 above.
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Mark

well right now with the bulb the hot side can get to 90-91. The thing is I want to breed and with breeding boas I believe you have to cool them so my problem is bringing the heat down and keeping it there and then bringing it back up. With the bulb the temp is going to flunctuate which will not be good for breeding. I cant afford the $100 thermostats thats why I looking at the $30 ones. I was thinking with a bulb connected to the thermostat the bulb will be going on/off constantly thats why I thought I needed heat tape. Do I have to have a thermostate and a dimmer? Do they have reptile dimmers like they have reptile thermostates?

Dimmers are just standard light dimmers. You can buy a $13 plug-in dimmer at Home Depot. It will work for lights or heat tape or heat pads or heat panels.

I still frown on heat tape under a wood cage. Adult boas need warm air. They come from the tropics. Warm air, not cool air and a warm floor. Not to say you can't use some Flexwatt too, but Flexwatt alone with no air heating doesn't sound good to me if your room temp gets cold.

You can still use a dimmer on the light to bring the temps down. And yes, you should have a thermostat too, but if you just want to use the dimmer for now, fine.

Honestly, to breed boas takes a certain setup, and the setup usually costs more than the boas if they aren't expensive morphs. How do you plan to house the babies if you are successful?
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Mark

well someone is selling the heat tape for $6 its 1ft and wired already. I was going to use heat tape and a bulb and put the heat tape on dimmer and or thermostat. So what you think its not good to use the heat tape and maybe use heat emmiter bulb? I thought most use heat tape. As far as the babies i will get a rack or build one, my boas are 100 het for albino poss het for snow. Just let me know what will be the best way to set the cage heating up and I will go with that. I had the male separeted housed in a large underbed sterilite but was told I can keep them together

Use a thermostat for the light bulb. Use a dimmer for the Flexwatt, or else a proportional controller for the Flexwatt (i.e. Big Apple Herp's $100 model). That is how to do it.
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Mark