Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Rob
BrianSmith told me that your an expert on heating home made cages. I am building my own cages out of Melamine wood and makeing two cages on top of that. So my question is how would I heat the cage so I can make it stackable? I heard heat tape and/or radiant pannels.
Thanks
Brian

Brian Smith must be a funny guy to say that because I am about as handy with tools as my 8 and 9 year old daughters. BUT, I do have a lot of experience using many types of cages including melamine and in all of the years I have been a hobbyist and professional herpetologist, I would have to say that for your purposes, a Pro Products Radiant Heat Panel would be your best choice. They are installed on the inside roof of the cage and this allows cages to be easily stacked. Give Bob Pound a call at PP and he can give you all of the info you need.

Thanks a lot for the advice have you ever used heat tape?
Thanks again
Brian

HEat tape isn't bad but I don't find that it bumps up the ambient temps to sufficient levels when working with burms. For rack types of arrangements they are an invaluable and often used heat source in my collection but not for heating large burms. If your cages are well insulated perhaps the 11" wide flex watt would do the trick as I know others who have used this system with success (a lot will depend on the room's ambient temps).

Hey Rob, I was about to ask you the same thing, but is there any thing cheeper then the heat pannals? Its not that I dont have the money, its just that I really need it in other areas. And I can not be dishing out $75.00 a cage for heating. Also how do you wire up heat tape and were do you place it in a all wood stacked cage?
Also, probe, it sounds like both you and me and making the same type of cage. How are you making yours?

Well thanks in advance for any advice.
Philip

When I sent my cage designs to Probe (sorry, forgot your name Probe), he asked me how to heat them. As I heat whole rooms and haven't used individual heat sources since the 80's I don't know a lot about it. A lot has changed in that realm since back then. Anyways, I remember reading MANY threads where you gave people perfect advice on how to heat their cages. So I told Probe, (verbatum) "Ask Rob Carmichael from the forums about it. He knows a lot more than I do about that." (well,... maybe not verbatum,. but closely paraphrased).

>>Brian Smith must be a funny guy to say that because I am about as handy with tools as my 8 and 9 year old daughters. BUT, I do have a lot of experience using many types of cages including melamine and in all of the years I have been a hobbyist and professional herpetologist, I would have to say that for your purposes, a Pro Products Radiant Heat Panel would be your best choice. They are installed on the inside roof of the cage and this allows cages to be easily stacked. Give Bob Pound a call at PP and he can give you all of the info you need.
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

Do you find it hard to provide thermal gradients in an eventy heated room? Obviously you have been successful so it shows you are doing things right. I know our quarantine room for burms uses a thermostatically controlled space heater for burms/retics along with a humidifier/vaporizer w/out individual cage heating and we have never experienced problems even thought I have always been concerns about not providing these gradients in this room (but they feed well, defecate well, etc.).

I don't provide thermal gradients, but there is slight fluxuation in temps to a few degrees from one section of a cage to another. But I have never had any problems of any sort with my snakes either feeding or breeding or anything. When it comes time for breeding I take the breeder rooms down considerably and then up again when they come out of their cycle. You don't have to do this for retics, but it doesn't hurt them either. But seriously, I have yet to see any solid proof that one HAS to provide a 10 or 15 degree gradient for a snake. Non of mine stress or nose (push to get out). They are all quite content and relaxed. To me this is a sign that they are content with their conditions.

>>Do you find it hard to provide thermal gradients in an eventy heated room? Obviously you have been successful so it shows you are doing things right. I know our quarantine room for burms uses a thermostatically controlled space heater for burms/retics along with a humidifier/vaporizer w/out individual cage heating and we have never experienced problems even thought I have always been concerns about not providing these gradients in this room (but they feed well, defecate well, etc.).
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

Just curious. What do you keep the room heated to in the off season. Also in breeding season.My friend does the same thing.He heats the whole room.

>>Just curious. What do you keep the room heated to in the off season. Also in breeding season.My friend does the same thing.He heats the whole room.
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

That is the temps for breeding season right.How about off season.

Off season,.. I took that as "off food", lol. All other times of the year I run my rooms at 88-92 days and 86-88 nights. During this "growth time" I give them 16 hour days and 8 hour nights. For the young or subadult pythons and boas I maintain these "summer" temps and photoperiod all year. And of course I have a few species (like dumeril's boas) that prefer lower temperatures and they get their own room that is about 85-86 days and 80-82 nights.

>>That is the temps for breeding season right.How about off season.
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

I am trying to set up a 16 by 16 building later this year. It will be fully insulated. It gets a little chilly here in NC in the winter. I was trying to figure out how to keep all my cages warm. In the suumer i would need to know to cool it down. I thought of putting a small AC unit in the window and putting it on a thermostat. I am trying to get my plan together instead of jumping in a wasting alot of time and money. I can have the building built in a weekend. Then it is just running wire for plugs, but if i heat the whole building i will not have to put alot of recepticles in the walls. I plan on running one long shop light to provide day/night cycle.The walls will be sheetrock and lenolumn on the floor. Let me know if there is anything i left anything out. Sorry for going on and on.

Is this going to be on a slab or on wood? (the building). I would reccomend that you try to make a larger building if it's at all possible. The reasons are simple; This hobby almost always grows and expands in numbers and size and I can see you outgrowing that size building in no time. Also, it's really not much more expensive to add a few feet to that to make a 20x20 building and that would make a world of difference. But if 16 feet is the biggest you can go with then you can still make it work. Make sure you make an 8 foot inner ceiling as cages always have a way of going up up up, and then stuff goes on top of them like soaking tubs and supplies. And if this building is going to have a peaked roof you'll want to install a decent attic fan and vents. This is where you would have the biggest problem with summer heat and thus extra costs in electric bills to compensate for it with an AC unit blasting all day. Better to vent the heat than to have to counter it.
Green drywall is cheaper than sheetrock and easier to work with and is highly water resistant (humdity).
Linoleum is good, but if you go with a cement slab you can just polish the floor and it won't scuff as badly when moving cages. Don't forget to install a drain and slope your floor to it. There will be spills.
Make your ceiling joist a strong one and you can hang a good ceiling fan. This not only makes working in a hot, high humidity environment tollerable but it also circulates the temperatures well. To this I might add that it is a good idea to either mount swivel wheels under your cages or have them on 4" blocks. This not only prevents the bottom cages from absorbing cold temperatures through your floor, but it also allows for good air circulation under and around the cages.
I personally keep large houseplants in my snake rooms to generate a pure oxygen balance and also because my nearby city can be pretty smoggy at times. But it's good to do this just to counter the carbon dioxide build-up from a large number of snakes kept in a small cubic foot space.
Let's see,.. what else,...
If you are going to use electric heaters, the hot oil type are the safest in my opinion, as well as the most energy efficient. If you install a ceiling fan then the best place for the heater is directly under it in the center of the room. You'll have to get a high voltage thermostat to run this on but the cool thing is that they have a built in, (thus back up) thermostat. I usually set this right about one degree above the primary thermostat setting. Make sure that you NEVER have your AC thermostat and heater thermostat going at the same time. I could imagine this causing them to have to work against one another and short out as a result. It may be a good idea to try to get them wired into the same multifunction thermostat so as when one is activated the other is automatically off.
Okay,. if I think of anything else I will post it. Good luck with your project.

>>I am trying to set up a 16 by 16 building later this year. It will be fully insulated. It gets a little chilly here in NC in the winter. I was trying to figure out how to keep all my cages warm. In the suumer i would need to know to cool it down. I thought of putting a small AC unit in the window and putting it on a thermostat. I am trying to get my plan together instead of jumping in a wasting alot of time and money. I can have the building built in a weekend. Then it is just running wire for plugs, but if i heat the whole building i will not have to put alot of recepticles in the walls. I plan on running one long shop light to provide day/night cycle.The walls will be sheetrock and lenolumn on the floor. Let me know if there is anything i left anything out. Sorry for going on and on.
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

It is going to have a wood floor.My brother in law has a 20 by 40 building. I am trying to get it. It needs a new roof and rewired.The only bad part is i would have to drive 30 to 45 mins to get there.The 16 by 16 will hold me over til i get out of college.I can get a 30 by 50 package for around 3,700. The cages will be movable,probally on wheels.I did not think of the ceiling fan. I planned on using the hot oil heater. What kind of thermostat do you recommend. I use Helix.Thank you for the help. I will have to add in your ideas with my plans.

Hey,
I couldent help but listen in. Im about to make my own reptile room to in our barn. I am still trying to figuare out how im going to heat my larger wood home made cages. I have 12 snakes right now, and 1 that is graved and 2 that are about to be. And I plan on keeping alot more herps to, and breeding large numbers. But I would also have alot of rubbermaids with coulbrids as well. How would that work in my case? I keep mostly boas, (argentinas, red tials, amazons, etc) but do keep 5 coulbrids. My room right now gets up to 86 degs and I start turning heat lamps off, (I know, I need a thermostat) and im starting to not heat my coulbrids. But should I aim at heating each cage when I get moved out or should I just heat the room up to 85 in the day? And use the safed money alse were in the hobby.
Well thanks for any input
Philip

Hi Philip,
It is simpler, easier, safer and even cheaper to heat an entire room with a single energy efficient oil-type heater, than it is to use 30 or 50 individual heat sources. I say that it's "safer" because it just plain is. With fewer electrical appliances you have less of a fire risk, or an overheating risk. To me, every extra or additional electric heater or appliance is 1% more of a fire risk. So I keep it as simple as possible. It's cheaper to get one 40 dollar oil type heater and it's cheaper to heat the cubic footage of the room because they are designed for efficiency. Light bulbs and flex watt are not. But once your room has reached your desired temperature it has to work very little to keep this set temp maintained (the better the room is insulated, the better the efficiency of the heater). If you want to keep your colubrids cooler you can just keep their sweater boxes directly on the floor. This will keep them many degrees cooler. Or just don't keep them in that room and only use it for tropical boids. I hope this helps.

>>Hey,
>>I couldent help but listen in. Im about to make my own reptile room to in our barn. I am still trying to figuare out how im going to heat my larger wood home made cages. I have 12 snakes right now, and 1 that is graved and 2 that are about to be. And I plan on keeping alot more herps to, and breeding large numbers. But I would also have alot of rubbermaids with coulbrids as well. How would that work in my case? I keep mostly boas, (argentinas, red tials, amazons, etc) but do keep 5 coulbrids. My room right now gets up to 86 degs and I start turning heat lamps off, (I know, I need a thermostat) and im starting to not heat my coulbrids. But should I aim at heating each cage when I get moved out or should I just heat the room up to 85 in the day? And use the safed money alse were in the hobby.
>>Well thanks for any input
>>Philip
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.

Hey, thanks alot! That really helped. Would it be safe for my coulbrids and my boids if I kept the room at 85? Thats what my reptile room is at now, and I am not heating any of my coulbrids. The coulbrids I do have are goins kingsnakes, sinoling milks, a rat snake, and a few corns. The boids I have are argentina boas, amazon tree boas, red tailed boas, rainbow boas, and a spotted python. But im about to buy a yellow anaconda, and my wish list which I hope to be keeping or breeding by this time next year are: ETBs, yellow anacondas, true red tails, and maybe even the rear fanged Asian green vine snake. But like I sead, I hope to be keeping and/or breeding thos snakes, I dought I would be able to afforde to buy all of them, but time will tell. But would that temp work with that mixed up of speces?
Well thanks alot,
Philip

p.s

How safe would it be working with snakes over 8-10 feet on a ladder? What I was thinking was heating it so that all the boids would be the highest thus warmest, and coulbrids closest to the floor were it would be cooler, but I dont know if I would like the idea of working around a conda like that, and there unpredictable temperment. Any input on that?

I would try to shoot for creating the different environmental temperature requirements for each different genre of snake. I would not advise working with large boids while on a ladder, but your idea for the different temperature levels at different heights is not a bad one if you are not using fans to circulate the air. But I doubt the temps would fluctuate more than a degree or two in an 8 foot range. But the reason why I suggested to place your colubrids directly on the floor is because cold temperatures "bleed" through floors and will cool the sweater boxes dramatically. Maybe too much in winter, so be careful if you try this and check it often until you have it figured out. But my advice is to create seperate rooms for the different types of snakes. This hobby of keeping reptiles isn't about making things more convenient for US, but about doing what's right for THEM.

>>Hey, thanks alot! That really helped. Would it be safe for my coulbrids and my boids if I kept the room at 85? Thats what my reptile room is at now, and I am not heating any of my coulbrids. The coulbrids I do have are goins kingsnakes, sinoling milks, a rat snake, and a few corns. The boids I have are argentina boas, amazon tree boas, red tailed boas, rainbow boas, and a spotted python. But im about to buy a yellow anaconda, and my wish list which I hope to be keeping or breeding by this time next year are: ETBs, yellow anacondas, true red tails, and maybe even the rear fanged Asian green vine snake. But like I sead, I hope to be keeping and/or breeding thos snakes, I dought I would be able to afforde to buy all of them, but time will tell. But would that temp work with that mixed up of speces?
>>Well thanks alot,
>>Philip
>>
>>p.s
>>
>>How safe would it be working with snakes over 8-10 feet on a ladder? What I was thinking was heating it so that all the boids would be the highest thus warmest, and coulbrids closest to the floor were it would be cooler, but I dont know if I would like the idea of working around a conda like that, and there unpredictable temperment. Any input on that?
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The fastest way to achieve great wealth is by living more poorly for much longer.