Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, I am thinking of buying a few V221 model vision cages but there are no places for overhead lighting / heating. the question is, is there a large enough gap underneath for a heat pad? and can I stack them with heat pads?

I have used Vision cages for many years and have many in use right now, several being 221s. I stack them with a heat pad under each one and never had a problem. I use the Exoterra Heat Wave pads as they are thin and I never heard of one burning out. I place the pad under the back center section in between the stacking ribs and attach the pad with aluminum foil tape around the edges. I did like the old style Heat Wave pads much better. Now I use the Desert model as the Rainforest model just does not provide enough heat through the Vision cage floor. A thermostat or rheostat is needed. Bill
-----
...three years ago it was just another snake cult...
The Retic is King.
Anacondas-the other Dark Side.
Afrocks-the dark side of the Dark Side.

Thanks Bill, yeah the small exo terra desert heat pads are what I'm getting. And I already have a zoo med rheostat on order so sounds like I'm heading in the right direction. Just needed some advice from someone with first hand experience with the vision cages.

What are you housing?

I'm going to be housing ball pythons in the 221's and a Hog Island boa in a 222 for now.

I'll give my opinion whether you want it or not, lol..

Ball pythons have got to be the most shy snake on the planet. IMO, that is one snake that seems to make the sweaterbox valid as a snake cage. They love low-height cages. They seem to prefer to think they are in a hole. Makes sense. In West Africa they spend 99% of the time in holes.

I really like Vision cages. I just think ball pythons do best in low-height, opaque containers. Racks are a really good thing with ball pythons. There are some 3 and 4 drawer ball python-sized racks available that cost as much as 2 Vision cages if paying shipping on the Visions. Food for thought. Vision makes amazing racks, but unfortunately they do not have adult racks with just 3-4 levels (the 10 or whatever level is expensive, unless you expect to have lots of ball pythons down the road).

Your boa on the other hand will be fine in either of those Vision models.

I understand, and the v221 is 28x24x12.. so it is fairly low height in my opinion. the footprint is fairly large but w/e.. I plan on breeding but the female het clown I just picked up has a few years ahead of her before shes ready so I figured vision cages would do just fine.

I think you will find that 12 inches is low height when you are trying to clean the cage, but not low height for the snake.

For BPs, I recommend 2ft of 11-inch Flexwatt run under each 221 cage during Winter if the room has no other heating, or a suitable 24inch x 11inch heat pad, or close to that.

For the 222 cage and boa, you can do the same. You can additionally have a low wattage lamp on the 222 but no more than 50 watts or so.

I would use a thermostat for the undercage heaters set to 88 deg. Dimmers are fine if the room temp stays fairly constant day/night but there is no way for a dimmer to know when too much is too much. Even a cheap herp thermostat inline with a dimmer is a good approach, as you at least have a safety shutoff should the temps get high when you are not there.

You are welcome. In fact I use the ZooMed rheostats for all my cages. Simple, old school, but effective and safe. I have heard too much about thermostats locking open and causing disasters. I use one of the temp gun thermometers to check the temperatures over the cage floor. Here in PA the house gets warmer in the summer and colder in the winter. So as the seasons change I have to adjust the rheos but once done I get fairly steady temps through out the season. ZooMed makes good heat pads too but they are thicker and get too hot. I have trouble toning them down in the summer months. Bill
-----
...three years ago it was just another snake cult...
The Retic is King.
Anacondas-the other Dark Side.
Afrocks-the dark side of the Dark Side.

Yeah, I live in WA state and the temps in the summer rarely make it into the mid 90's average temp of 70 - 80 in the summer, gets down to average 20's in the winter.. but summer heat should not be a problem.