How to heat...

[Kathy]

OK, so I've painted the inside of my cradenza as posted down a few threads, now I have to decide how I want to heat it. Unless someone will sell me like, 2 feet of heat tape, that is pretty much not an option. So I'm left with heat lights, ceramic heaters, or regular heat pads. Lights and ceramic heaters can be covered with mesh to keep teh snakes away, but where would I put a heat pad if I used that? The wood is too thick to mount it underneith the enclosure, so it would have to be inside somehow. ARG I'm no good at this hehe, any suggestions would be great! Remember this is for corn snakes :)

Thanks

[Edwin]

You can buy a human heat pad or a Kane heat pad and place it in the cage, buried under your substrate. Just remember to get a dimmer or preferably a thermostat for both options (Its a must for the Kane heat pad).

Another choice would be radiant heat panels, which can be mounted on the cage ceiling or on the cage walls. Heat panels are expensive, but will not burn your corn, and are only effective up to a certain distance. Another benefit is that it will not dry out your enclosure like heat pads or CHEs.

You can order 2 feet of heat tape from the US, but factoring in shipping, it is not worthwhile.

Hope this helps.

[ls1grrrl]

You can buy heat tape by the foot.. We have a 2ft piece laying around here that we just haven't put to use on any enclosures yet. I believe we got it from Big Apple Herps (http://www.bigappleherp.com/bigappleherp.filereader?3dde8ebb04d8044e2720424d36 1a0620+EN/products/119105)

Although, for out larger wood enclosure we use a radiant heat panel mounted on the top over to one side. For our 4x2x2 (melamine) cage, we have a 1x2 radiant heat panel hooked up to a rheostat to adjust the heat output. It provides a perfect gradient between 79* and 89*, with an ambient in the low 80s during the day. At night it drops by a few degrees just in response to the drop in room temp. The heat panel is the only heat source for this cage and always seems to maintain a prime temp gradient for the BCI living therein. Here're a couple of pics:

http://64.45.232.21/gallery/vivarium/heatpanel.jpg

http://64.45.232.21/gallery/vivarium/viv10.jpg

[Edwin]

Heather,

That is a NICE setup. Did you make those hide boxes yourself?

[ls1grrrl]

Originally posted by Edwin
Heather,

That is a NICE setup. Did you make those hide boxes yourself?

Thanks, actually the lower hide boxes are just upside down kitty litter pans with holes cut and filed down smooth. They're cheap and come in a variety of sizes. The upper hide is a shallow clay pot. We wanted to be sure Ayasha had plenty of hides in all the different temperature regions in her enclosure and that it wasn't too wide open to avoid stressing her out. She makes use of both the upper and lower levels daily to thermo-regulate.