Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a pair of het boas I want to breed this yr housed in a 4x2x2 wood cage. What would be the best way to setup this cage as for as heat and heat controllers. If I dont need to spend $100 on thermostat I rather not. I would like to know what u all use and how ur setup is if you use dimmers do you have to come in everynight and lower temps especially for cooling? What are the pros and cons with your suggested setups

By Nature I am a cheap person, I buy my clothes at factory outlet Stores (or Wal Mart) and I try to do things as cheap as I can. I use corded lamp dimmers to keep my heaters right at 95 degrees year round. I use a Digital indoor outdoor Thermometer to Keep track of the Temps. I use the out door prob on the hot spot and the unit itself in mounted on the other side of the cage. During the summer I keep the snake room at 82-84 degrees and during the winter I keep it at 74-78. The inside cage temps stays about 3-4 degrees higher then the room temp and the hot spot is a constant 95. Once I had the cages dialed in I don't touch them, they are set and stay that way year round, the room temp gives me the subtle difference in temps I need and with the light cycle (also on timmers) being shorter the boas cycle right in. The Digital Thermometer was $10.00 at Home Depot and the corded Dimmer is $8.95 at Wall Mart, Oh and I use one corded dimmer for every 6 cages (power Strips).
I hope this Helps
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

I take it you plug the strip into the dimmer? Also what type of strip do you use? I just had some heat tape short out and my strip didn't trip and darn near caught my snake and house on fire. Charred the wood and everything. Thanks For any input

Yeah I plug the strip into the dimmer, The strip is just a normal 6 outlet strip with a breaker on it, wal-Mart $3.00. I have never had heat tape (flexwatt) go bad on me, ever, So I would be surprised to see it, but I would think that between the dimmer, the strip and the GFI outlets that they are all pluged into, something would trip and stop the short, but that is one of the risks of heated cages I guess
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

This is what I do with my collection. I use dimmers for the babies and yearling's, I keep them warm all year long during there growing to size phase. For my adult breeders I use Helix thermostats so I can monitor there temps more, I can hit my day time highs and night time lows better during the breeding season. Also by having them on thermostats I can pay more attention to the breeding then running around with my temp gun checking heat. "not saying don't check from time to time but you see my point". This works for me. If you only have a few pairs to worry about, you should be fine with the dimmers but if you keep a large collection I highly recommend using a thermostat.

James W. Arnold