Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok i have this delema, i am debating between heat lamps and heat tape. i am about to build a 3'W x 6'H x 2'D ball python housing quarters. it is going to have 3 differnt compartments, one on top the other. i have this delema because i am making it out of melamine and i dont know if i can put heat tape on it. also im looking at the electrical cost, because heat tape stays on 24/7, where as a light fixture stays on a certain amount of time a day..or i can do both, with the light fixture on during the day and the heat tape on at night. and also how do i attach the heat tape to the melamine with out the animal touching it and then that determines my substrate also.let me know what yall think, i really need some ideas..thanks...
-----
0.1 normal redtail boa
1.0 true redtail boa
1.1 100% het for albino redtails
1 miami red phase cornsnake
1 baby sulcata tortoise
1 snow corn

heat tape, heat tape, heat tape!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ditch the lamp thing in the early stages, you'll be SO HAPPY you did.....

heat lamps cause so many problems and are not worth the hassle and risks.

please see Tim Cranwill's page on this: HERE

Jessy

Link

-----
1.0 gorgeous spider ball python
2.2 het for axanthic
5.20 normals
www.blazingreptiles.com up & running!

Heat tape is much better to use than lamps for a variety of reasons and you can put it on melemine - but you are right you shouldn't put it in the cage with the snakes. There may be some way to do it, but you should check the caging forum to find some ideas. I have heat rope inside my large tank underneath the substrate and that works well for keeping a nice ambient temperature. Also make sure you put your heat source/sources on a thermostat/rheostat no matter what you use.
-----
Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

7.33.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi - yeah I know but my kids love the book)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.2 frogs rescued from pool skimmer

I agree. Heat Tape. I use alot of it, and I love it. It will cots a little more to get it started, but its well worth the investment. Heat lamps are hard to control the temp, you get big hot spots, and big cool spots. Heat tape you just get an even heat. If you really want to go all out on the heat tape, for one of my cages I put some metal over it in the cage and foil taped around that, then calked around that. It would not be the nicest thing to have to clean up it it had to be removed, but its and awsome, even, and reliable heat source. The down side (and still a down side to lamps too) is that you will need to run it with a thermostat.

Ben

ok im gonna go with the heat tape, but should i also put a light on during the day...and also ive heard of the foil tape, should i put a piece of foil tape on each side of the heat tape and then put it under the substrate....and if anyone has any pictures it would be great..thanks everyone..i appreciate it...
-----
0.1 normal redtail boa
1.0 true redtail boa
1.1 100% het for albino redtails
1 miami red phase cornsnake
1 baby sulcata tortoise
1 snow corn

I would not put it inside the enclosure at all. Put it underneath the cage/enclosure. Also I don't use foil tape, just plain old electicians tape. I've gotten low grade shocks off of heat tapes before and electicians tape is a better insulator.

>>ok im gonna go with the heat tape, but should i also put a light on during the day...and also ive heard of the foil tape, should i put a piece of foil tape on each side of the heat tape and then put it under the substrate....and if anyone has any pictures it would be great..thanks everyone..i appreciate it...
>>-----
>>0.1 normal redtail boa
>>1.0 true redtail boa
>>1.1 100% het for albino redtails
>>1 miami red phase cornsnake
>>1 baby sulcata tortoise
>>1 snow corn

Now I dont think putting it in the cage is a good idea, I was just saying how it can (i have done it) be done. Big snakes have a way of messing anything up, and you should never give then access to electricity. Also on the foil tape, I guess I did assume you would cover the exposed meatle very well with electrical tape before putting foil tape on. I pit it over the contacts, and on the other end over the "cut" on the edge.

Ben
American Tropics

when you get the heat tape how do you put it under the cage?....
say you have a shelf or rack..... do you put the tape down on a shelf and then put the cage "plastic bin" down directly ontop of it or should you get like a thin piece of wood to seperate the two?.....
im getting heat tape soon and id like to know...
thanks
-----
Under a dead ohio sky,
Eleven has been and will be waiting,
Defending his light,
And wondering...
Where the hell have I been?
Sleeping, lost, and numb.
So glad that I have found you.
I am wide awake and heading home.
TOOL

when you get the heat tape how do you put it under the cage?....
say you have a shelf or rack..... do you put the tape down on a shelf and then put the cage "plastic bin" down directly ontop of it or should you get like a thin piece of wood to seperate the two?.....
im getting heat tape soon and id like to know...
thanks

-----
Under a dead ohio sky,
Eleven has been and will be waiting,
Defending his light,
And wondering...
Where the hell have I been?
Sleeping, lost, and numb.
So glad that I have found you.
I am wide awake and heading home.
TOOL

So far for me the best way is to just have the cage (plastic bin) rest right on top of the heat tape. Now several things need to be known about the heat tape first. Heating elements like heat tape use too small of conductors and alot of electricity, this creates heat. See the black vertical lines? They are really thing strips of metal. When you push a bunch of electricity through a small wire, it heats up. Along the sides of the heat tape is the main supply of power, a copper strip. When you put the tub right on top of the heat tape, year after year, pulling the tub in and out, it will ware down the top plastic protecting these small black wires. The best idea is to put some foil tape over the area that will get the most rubbing from the plastic bin. In the more expensive racks, they will put a thin strip of metal over the heat tape. This can be costly, but has two major benifits, one it protects the heat tape. Two, it distributes the heat evenly. This is important as heat tape will not always evenly heat, and if you put your thirmostat on the tape, you could have it on a hot/cool spot and het bad heating. Why I dont use a metal sheet over mine is because I want to be able to inspect the heat tape at all times. I dont want to have to tear apart my rack to get to it. Thats why you see it attached to a board, that fits in a pocket. If anything happens to it, or its just not needed, it can be removed with out effecting all the other cages. Most important, make sure all possable metal edges get covered with several layers of electrical tape, and all 4 edges of the heat tape get taped down, so nothing can catch on it. If you bend that heat tape and ware the wires thinner, it will get hotter (going back to the whole too much electricity through a small wire thing) and before it has a chance to break and just not work, it could melt the plastic and catch something on fire.

Heat Tape is NOT UL rated. This means they have no safty rating. Now who knows why, I do know its expensive to have done, and would make the product more expensive. When I make PC boards for things, UL rating STARTS at $1000, after I have paid $250 for an electrical eng to look it over. That all said, its a use at your own risk product. Thats why all the products you buy off the shelves in pet stores are so bad at heating, they have to tone them down so much for them to pass the UL rating. Who knows how hot rocks ever passed (it they did).

Ben
American Tropics

i see how you do it, but is it in direct contact with the wood?
is it still going to provide the amount of heat necessary? thanks for the pics...
-----
0.1 normal redtail boa
1.0 true redtail boa
1.1 100% het for albino redtails
1 miami red phase cornsnake
1 baby sulcata tortoise
1 snow corn

Yes it is in direct contact with the wood. The wood will get warm too, but it wont soak up the heat like a metal rack will. I have had no problems with thins method. I also have some racks built with melamine coated wood, and it works just as good. I dont know for sure, but I would think if you had a metal rack, and metal covering the heat tape, the entire rack would "soak" up the heat and prove to be alot more ineficiant than wood. Of course it will work just fine, I just dont know if its as efficiant as wood. Wood is also much cheaper to work with for me. I can pick up my entire rack and move it around with no problems.

On some boards I have experimented with putting foil on the under side of the heat tape, to maybe help reflect the heat up, but I havent noticed a diff in heating. The point is I dont think it really matters what you put it on, the heat tape should work fine. Just use a thermostat, and locate the sensor exactly where you want the heat to be that temp... or not. Read on.

The first rack I built, I drilled a hole in the bottom of a tub and put the sensor in the tub. I taped it to the bottom and taped all over it so the snake could not pull it up. This was great and kept the temp perfict until the water bowl spilled, messed up the tape, and then the snake messed up the sensor, resulting in the sensor not touching the bottom and the heat running wild. It also was bad because then if I had to wash that tub I had to untape it all and redo it. Now I do it one of two ways depending on the rack. One way is the same as the old, only I just leave one tub with no animal, sensor only. The other way is to locate the sensor next to the tub on the heat tape/source. Set it a little high, and then measure the temps inside the cage. This usually works just fine.

Ben

"The first rack I built, I drilled a hole in the bottom of a tub and put the sensor in the tub. I taped it to the bottom and taped all over it so the snake could not pull it up. This was great and kept the temp perfict until the water bowl spilled, messed up the tape, and then the snake messed up the sensor, resulting in the sensor not touching the bottom and the heat running wild. It also was bad because then if I had to wash that tub I had to untape it all and redo it. Now I do it one of two ways depending on the rack. One way is the same as the old, only I just leave one tub with no animal, sensor only. The other way is to locate the sensor next to the tub on the heat tape/source. Set it a little high, and then measure the temps inside the cage. This usually works just fine.

Ben"

Some good posts there Ben.Thats how i get the temp figured out on different racks/cages too.
The easiest way to do it is to set the t-stat probe where it is going to stay.Then get one of those $15 indoor/outdoor digital thermometers and set its probe in the tub/cage,and set it that way.Those thermometers usually have a min/max reading that can be used to test run the rack for 24 to 48 hours and see how the t-stat placement is doing for you.
-----
Charles Glaspie

Tanstaafl:
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
An acronym created by my favorite author Robert A. Heinlein.

If by heat tape, you mean flex watt, I think that is best- but you must use a thermostat to properly control it. Since you are using melamine, the 1/2 inch of particle board would be too much insulation to put it outside the tank, but you can buy a 4' x 8' plastic sheet from a home improvement store (used to line showers or other areas having water) for around $9.00. and cut it to fit the bottom of your cage. You can economize and only cut it large enough to cover the flex watt, or cover the entire bottom so you do not leave an exposed edge, then seal around the perimeter with silicon. Assuming you build a 2' x 4' cage, you can still get four panels from the sheet, so that's only $2.50 per cage to completely cover and water seal the flex watt.

dude..thanks so much..thats a hell of an idea...i think ill try it...man that makes it so much easier...i was gonna buy peg-board with the holes in it and put the heat tape in between that and the melamine...but i think the plastic will work much better, thanks...
-----
0.1 normal redtail boa
1.0 true redtail boa
1.1 100% het for albino redtails
1 miami red phase cornsnake
1 baby sulcata tortoise
1 snow corn