Reptile & Amphibian Forums

They have a rim around the bottom that keeps the bottom from coming in direct contact with the heat tape.

Ive never read anything about this.

Thanks for the help.

Mine don't touch either. You just have to let the tape stay on longer to compensate. If you have a thermostat with a probe in the sterilite container it should take care of it. If your probe isn't in a container then you have to take into account that the probe is seeing a hotter temp than your snake.

I've never heard of any other way to handle it.
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1.1 Normal BPs (Syd and Nancy)
1.1 Het. Albino BPs (Bill and Beatrix)
1 Rat colony

Just set the thermostat to get the desired temp inside the tub.

Right now im using a dimmer switch to control the heat. My helix thermo. should be here on friday.

Even so my heat tape is at 95 and the box is only 78 directly over the tape.

small layer of air. The heat tape should come with instructions.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

Its Flexwatt heat tape its really basic stuff, but ive never used it with sterilite boxes before and never read of anyone having the same problem even though i know they have had to run into this.

point is my tape is around 95 degrees and the part of the box that is over the tape is only 78. I can see having a small gap of air, but the sterilite boxes have too much of a gap.

That isn't 'too much' by my standards. I never measured the temp of the flexwatt itself, but many many people on this forum are running the same setup. You just have to turn it up until the tub is the temp you want, don't worry about it. We all run the same setup with no probs.
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1.1 Normal BPs (Syd and Nancy)
1.1 Het. Albino BPs (Bill and Beatrix)

You will likely have to "play" with the settings. Trying to maintain a hot spot of 95 degrees can increase the ambient temp to a rather unpleasant high temp. My temps change as the seasons come and go.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

It is better if there is a thin layer of air to dissipate the heat a little bit. It will heat just as well and there will be less of a chance of damaging hot spots.

Will

Everything is heating up just fine now and life is good!!