Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all,

I'm awaiting a small group of gilas from Mark Seward, and to make sure I had plenty of time, the cages was bulid long time ago.
Last week, I was giving them a test run, but they got way to hot. I tried different bulbs and eventually tried reducing the output, but I still could not get a proper temp gradient in the cages.
So I'm considering to put a small heatmat/heattape inside each cage, under the substrate, to make a hotspot of 30-33°C and then have a cold side with only 25-26°.

But I wondered if the Gilas might begin chewing in the mats?
Do any gilakeppers here, use heatmats inside the tank?
Under tank heaters have not been considered, as the cages are build in 15mm woodplates

Have a nice weekend

Jakob

I had a similar situation to yours and I found this to be a good solution:

I got a piece of 11" flexwatt, wired it up and put it on the floor of the cage. Then I went to my local Home Depot and bought the 4 cheapest 12" X 12" ceramic floor tiles they had. I put them in a 2 x 2 square with the heat tape centered beneath them. I ran the temp probe of a helix thermostat between the tiles so the probe itself was directly in the center of the square. Then I used duct tape to secure the whole thing to the cage floor. I also covered the seams between the tiles with the tape.

You can pick your desired temp with the Helix, cover the whole kit and kaboodle with your substrate, and you're good to go.

I've used this for quite a while and it really works perfectly, for just about all reptiles.

Good Luck,
Vinny

One other thing, you can obviously alter the size of the heat tape and tiles to fit whatever size cage you have.

Vinny

Thanks Vinny,

I think I will give it a try Off to the local hardware store

good idea! One other thing though I' take extra caution and insulate/waterproof around the tiles n flexwatt to prevent any possibility of a shock/short if a water bowl spills or they take
a wee on it....Marks animals are outstanding! You are in for a great experience. I've been building a nice group of his cinctums the last couple years and am just blown away by thier color n health...if I can say one thing that really shocked me about heloderms compared to most reptiles is they like it cool...keep um an area around 88 but if they are too nervous or puke on ya turn um down a couple degrees, and off at room temp at night...think the digestive system can get to working overtime on these guys....Also babies really like plenty of snug hiding spots like paper towel rolls and seem to benefit a lot from a humid hide once they start growing like weeds and perpetually shedding the first two years or so... good luck
PEACE

Thanks Dennis.
Marks good reputation was also one of the reasons, why I choose to purchase from him, instead of one of the European breeders.
I can hardly wait anymore )

But I just installed the mats and tiles today. It works perfectly. Thanks again for the advice, Vinny