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I was wondering how you safely heat them??? I am running out of room and money for glass tanks but there is a reptile expo coming up this fall and I really want to pick up some more geckos (albinos, tangs, or patternless hopefully). I was thinking of getting a big rubbermaid container and using a pretty basic setup (paper towels, plastic shoebox for a humid hide, water dish, food dish) for maybe a trio of leos.

Cleo
1:1 leos (6 eggs cooking)

I just use the normal reptile heat pads for my snakes which are in rubbermaid containers, they don't get too hot to melt them.
Adam

>>I was wondering how you safely heat them??? I am running out of room and money for glass tanks but there is a reptile expo coming up this fall and I really want to pick up some more geckos (albinos, tangs, or patternless hopefully). I was thinking of getting a big rubbermaid container and using a pretty basic setup (paper towels, plastic shoebox for a humid hide, water dish, food dish) for maybe a trio of leos.
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>>Cleo
>>1:1 leos (6 eggs cooking)
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I use Rubbermaid containers with heat strips, works great! We built a rack system using rob Jenkins' method so you can house more geckos that way with the containers. Glass tanks are nice but takes up too much space especially if you have as many critters as I do.

how si the heat tape used?

does the tape stayatached to the contrainer when it is slid out of the rack.

how is it wired?

and is there plans around for racks also what is a good container size as i am runing in to the problem as she

mat price

Since I have all my containers on a rack, the heat tape is taped down onto the shelf. You will want to either put a peg board or ceramic tiles on top of the heat tape so when you slide the bins in and out it won't rub up against the tape. Bean Farm also sells the aluminum tape or you can get it at Home Depot or Lowe's. You will need the metal, plastic clips and cord set to wire it up. My husband is pretty good with wiring so we didn't buy the cord instead he wires all the shelves into a conduit box and that's wired to a light dimmer. Rob Jenkins has a very good step by step instructions on how to make this rack & wiring on his site. Using heat tape is much more energy efficient than using lights.

np

Right now I have an infrared lamp on my plastic containers and it works pretty well, but I am upgrading everything to heat tape. Heat tape can be bought online from the Bean Farm, here are instructions on wiring: www.kingsnake.com/obsoleta/flexwatt.htm

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~Andrea

2.8.1 Leopard geckos
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I lost a kingsnake because my little brother knocked the heat lamp into the plastic and melted it. I'd hate for the same thing to happen with someone else.

I use heat pads with my leos currently...but gonna be switching to tape soon.

Hi Cleo,

I've always kept my geckos on heat tape in Rubbermaids, but I'm going to try something new this weekend. I purchased some new "heat rope" from Big Apple Herp.com, and I'm going to attempt to heat those Sterilite drawers with it. I've got 27 feet of the stuff (all 27 feet is just a total of 80 watts). I'm going to have to drill some holes and rig some stuff, but right now it seems like a pretty cheap way to heat a lot of leos. I'll let you know how it goes!

Andrea

If it isnt too much to ask, could you explain how you plan to run it through the shelves(in detail)?? Thanks
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Josh
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There are several ways...one is, put the sweater box up on those little rubber feet they make for furniture, and slide a human heating pad under it. You can adjust the temp, and since the box isn't resting directly on the pad, it's pretty safe.

For mine, I have a combo of a human heating pad hanging (by the cloth cover) beside 3 stacked boxes, and a clamp lamp clamped to the side of the shelf focused on the same end of the boxes, but at a distance so as not to risk warping them. This provides enough heat.

You can also, of course, use heat tape.