30x24x18 Heating Questions ECT.....

[Liddle]

Just Got This Tank wondering how to set it up. just orderd a thermostat, ceramic heat emitter, under the tank pad. a digital hygro/thermometer. wondering where I should put thermostat thermometer. and where I should place the cords for the hygro/thermometer in the tank wise. I want the cermic heat emitter controlled by the thermostat. should I hook the under the tank heater up too it too?. ive kept tokays for a while just never got this in depth with the tempeture controlling. wondering the best strategies. I use reptibark(never had a problem) figured the uth would help keep humidity up. Thx Everyone Much LOve

 

[Aimless]

a uth will dry the substrate out faster, not keep the humidity up.

hmmm...for probe placement. that's a good question. having rescued both geckos and snakes with terrible burns, I tend to like to place the probe where it should be hottest and dial in the upper limit, so that the heat source can't ever overdo it.

 

[Embrace Calamity]

a uth will dry the substrate out faster, not keep the humidity up.

Are you sure? I thought UTHs help with evaporation to circulate through the rest of the enclosure with moist substrate. (Though, bark can't really be kept all that moist, so that might be useless here.) I mean, obviously there would some drying, but as far as heating methods that result in drying, I thought UTHs were the least so. CHEs will dry things out quite quickly.

~Maggot

 

[Aimless]

yeah, but he's already using a CHE and wants to add a UTH. the UTH will dry out the substrate. try a UTH with a planted tank, and you'll have a post-apocalyptic viv in a pretty short time (this is not simply due to heat).

 

[Liddle]

☺

Actually reprobate doesn't get very moose itself but there is quite a build up of water in the bottom layer so figured would be no diffrrnt

 

[billewicz]

Are you sure? I thought UTHs help with evaporation to circulate through the rest of the enclosure with moist substrate. (Though, bark can't really be kept all that moist, so that might be useless here.) I mean, obviously there would some drying, but as far as heating methods that result in drying, I thought UTHs were the least so. CHEs will dry things out quite quickly.

~Maggot

If you are misting to match tropical weather in an unplanted enclosure, the substrate will get soggy to almost floating. By using an UTH soarce, this will do three things.
1) Help keep the mulch from rotting and growing mold by drying it out in between mistings.
2) This does raise the humidity by evaporating the water in the substrate.
3) The UTH helps keep the entire enclosure up to tropical temperature and not just a hot spot.

 

[Aimless]

Bill, what would you suggest as a wattage? I've never tried a UTH with my planted vertical enclosures.

the two people I know who set their geckos up in the way you suggested had arid substrate, turning me off that method.

perhaps they were not misting adequately?

(thanks for correcting me; I don't always hit a homer)

 

[billewicz]

Bill, what would you suggest as a wattage? I've never tried a UTH with my planted vertical enclosures.

the two people I know who set their geckos up in the way you suggested had arid substrate, turning me off that method.

perhaps they were not misting adequately?

(thanks for correcting me; I don't always hit a homer)

I'm not sure I can give you a 'wattage'. I have almost 250 glass enclosures on Metro wire rack shelves for Tokay. I started using the pet store sticky-back heat pads. Most of the original 50 pads peeled off within a year. I have heat cord, heat tape and other heat pads under the enclosures now.

The trick is to have a good layer of substrate of several inches. I use Cyprus on top of an inch of Hydro-balls, expanded clay balls. The other trick is to adjust the UTH thermostat to balance the drying effect. Too cold, and you have a swamp in the rainy season. Too hot, like in the dry season, and you have the desert kindle you've seen.

So right now I'm misting 4 times a day with a heavy soaking for one of them. It's the rainy/breeding season. The rooms are a bit cooler, (high 80's day/mid 70'2 night), than summer months but I have the under heat up a bit to off-set the monsoon.

For folks with a single enclosure in a typical house, the under heat is the saving grace for keeping the Tropical enclosure up to temps.

Come summer, the misting will fall off to 2 short mistings a day and the ambient temps will be in the high 90's down to the high 80's, but I'll dial back, or turn off the under heat depending how I'm misting them.

I find if I can almost dry out the substrate daily it will last all baby season. 7 months.

 

[Liddle]

I'm not sure I can give you a 'wattage'. I have almost 250 glass enclosures on Metro wire rack shelves for Tokay. I started using the pet store sticky-back heat pads. Most of the original 50 pads peeled off within a year. I have heat cord, heat tape and other heat pads under the enclosures now.

The trick is to have a good layer of substrate of several inches. I use Cyprus on top of an inch of Hydro-balls, expanded clay balls. The other trick is to adjust the UTH thermostat to balance the drying effect. Too cold, and you have a swamp in the rainy season. Too hot, like in the dry season, and you have the desert kindle you've seen.

So right now I'm misting 4 times a day with a heavy soaking for one of them. It's the rainy/breeding season. The rooms are a bit cooler, (high 80's day/mid 70'2 night), than summer months but I have the under heat up a bit to off-set the monsoon.

For folks with a single enclosure in a typical house, the under heat is the saving grace for keeping the Tropical enclosure up to temps.

Come summer, the misting will fall off to 2 short mistings a day and the ambient temps will be in the high 90's down to the high 80's, but I'll dial back, or turn off the under heat depending how I'm misting them.

I find if I can almost dry out the substrate daily it will last all baby season. 7 months.

What About Thermostate Probe Placement For A CHE In A Brooder Dome On The Screen Lid? Any Helpful Info On This To Keep The Enclosure Warmer In General With That.

 

[billewicz]

I'm not a fan of ceramics on the screen because Tokay crawl all over the enclosure including the screen so burning them and their pads is a real danger. The dome and ceramic are meant to direct heat and focus it to a spot. aka, a hot spot for a ground dwelling desert loving Gecko.

I'm not sure I'd like the screen to be over 85 degrees.

My rooms are temperature regulated so there is no 'hot spots' from ceramics. Understandably most folks are working with a single enclosure in a typical room in their house. So they need to get almost a 20 degree temperature lift in the enclosure.

In a normal room I've used two under heat pads, one under the enclosure and another against the back. This plus the ceramic, or heat lamp a couple of inches above the screen and dialed back so as not to burn the screen. This would project enough heat into the core of the enclosure while the back and bottom radiated enough heat to balance out the enclosure.

Monitoring the screen temp is important for safety but the core temp is what your after. I like using the Pro Exotics PE-2 Infrared Temp Gun, ( Temp Gun PE-2 - Temp/Humdity Monitoring | Josh's Frogs ) for spot checking and monitoring in addition to the probe.

I hope that helps,

Michael

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Just play around with the stuff in various configurations until you find what works best for your set up. With variations in people's homes, room humidity, ambient air temps in the room, different enclosures, etc, it's almost impossible to say one exact way to set it up. Keep in mind the natural conditions of tokay in the wild are about as hot and muggy as you can imagine.

@ aimee, try flexwatt heat tape as opposed to crappy "name brand" heat mats. Much better quality product and comes in a variety of widths, wattage, and you can cut it to the specific size that you need.

 

[Liddle]

Just play around with the stuff in various configurations until you find what works best for your set up. With variations in people's homes, room humidity, ambient air temps in the room, different enclosures, etc, it's almost impossible to say one exact way to set it up. Keep in mind the natural conditions of tokay in the wild are about as hot and muggy as you can imagine.

@ aimee, try flexwatt heat tape as opposed to crappy "name brand" heat mats. Much better quality product and comes in a variety of widths, wattage, and you can cut it to the specific size that you need.

if I used heat tape could I mount it on the sides and bottom of the viv(for substrate drying) in that case would i place the themorstat directly on top of the heat tape correct? cause that's what youre controlling. And what should I run the heattape itself tempture wise. Keep The CHE as well? Just elevate it off the screen?