Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I hear mixed things about each cage. Some tell me that the boaphiles are excellent but they can be broken on the seams. Some say that the visions are hard to heat. What is the best way to heat these cages without using heat lamps????

Thanks
for all replies.

Joe

I have both. Here is my take on it.

Boaphile cages retain heat extremely well. Flexwatt on the outside of the cage will heat the cage pretty well unless your room is really cold. I recommend the floor heat option - it works VERY well.

Visions do not retain heat well due in part to the type of plastic used but also due to the use of plate glass doors (Boaphile uses acrylic.) For exotic animals that require the air temp above room temp, you need to use heat lamps or a heat panel or else you need a heated room. I have a Vision 322 for a jungle carpet. I use 2 of the 5 1/2" aluminum domes with a 30 watt Pearlco ceramic bulb in each, plus I installed a fixture inside the cage and use red heat lamps of various wattage depending on time of year. And it takes all devices on to do the job. The cage is in an unheated room.

Boaphile cages will not break under normal use. Abusing any plastic cage can cause damage. Visions are the toughest because of the plastic used, the fact that they are molded, and the aluminum door track which adds strength to the cage door frame.

Why can't you use a heat lamp or two in the Vision?

Its not that I cant use heat lamps on the cage, I just ptrefer not too, I'm at work all day and I am extremely paranoid about a fire. I always used heat lamps but recently I just have this really bad feeling about it.

Most likely ill be going with the boaphile cage with built in heat. The guy i spoke with on the pphone when i called boaphile said that the installed heat option would be plenty of heat for my hogg island.

Thanks
for the reply~

I use under tank heaters on my visions for my boas and pythons and they work great.

I once had a vision cage fall out of the back of my truck on the freeway. Other than a few scratches the cage was fine. I wouldn't try that with any other cage on the market.

what brand under the tank heater do you use????

Hope your snakes weren't in it when it went sailing !!!

Michael

arent heat lamps bad for animals that require a lot of humidity?
and how bad are teh visions with heating - i live in miami, so in the day my room is probablly 80 , although we put the a/c way up at night. in thi case, would an UTH be good enough for a snake the requires up the 80 degrees?

and finally, ive heard a lot about heat tape but never quite understood h ow they work or how you use them. is it like one long uth you put on the side of a stack?

thanks guys
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proud mama to:
1.0.0 ball python
0.0.1 albino florida kingsnake
1.0.0 leopard gecko
0.1.0 colombian rainbow boa
0.1.0 bearded dragon
1.1.0 colombian redtailed boas (on the way!)

Bottom heat is just a drying if not more than overhead heat. Sure, the air can be humid, but an animal laying on belly heat does get dry. So you can't assume that overhead heat dries out a cage but belly heat doesn't. Both do.

In my own experiments with heating methods, I came to a conclusion that exotics like boas/pythons do very well with overhead heat if the room is generally cool. I swear that my ball pythons did better under ceramic bulbs than over just heat tape alone. This was at my house. Could be different for others.

If your room is already 80 deg, then you are good to go with a strip of Flexwatt set at 85-88 deg. I'm talking for boas/pythons. Colubrids are fine at 80 deg.

For a boa, it is not good to have a warm heat pad in a cold cage. But like I said, if your room is 80 deg, then you are in good shape. I don't know why I'm assuming a boa/python cage here. I guess because heating colubrids is less of an issue.
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Mark

Hello. I am/was THIS close to getting boaphile cages... for my garters btw... and then they told me their floresants are tiny. They said they were slightly larger then a pinkie finger and said if hardware stores don't carry the style I could buy from them. I many want them to light the cage... but there is a controvercy about useing uv bulbs on snakes... wheather they are needed or not. My vet wants me to. I told her the arguments against that they don't really need it... and she gave me a good argument for.. includeing a zoo which had all it's babies born with crooked spines after takeing the snakes off uv and put on normal light. She said I don't have to get the expencive zoo med etc stuff just a "full spectrum" bulb. But I don't know if that kind of thing FITS in a boaphile cage (I'm going to write them as well)

Also it occured to me... someone out there may want one of these cages FOR something that NEEDS the uv (uva/uvb) light... like bearded dragons... so in that case they would be... well sorry STUPID to set it up so you couldn't put in a uva/uvb bulb!
So I want to know from people who HAVE the cages if you can put a uva/uvb and/or full spectrum bulbs in the cages... oh and I'm getting the smallest cage 24"x 24" x 12"

Thank you for your time.
- Sharon