Chip
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒ&
I did this in August of last year. I plan to duplicate it on some more brands, so wanted to post it into my personal forum where I could edit it as I wish. From 8-23-2012:
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124632&highlight=heat
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124632&highlight=heat
Recently, a new keeper was describing her situation trying to heat her glass aquarium. Over the years, I've sent off many a baby snake to an aquarium with a reptile heating pad. In no way is this as easy as plugging in a commercial (or homemade) rack and setting the thermostat, where the biggest decision we face is perhaps some additional ventilation holes. Quite frankly, glass stinks as corn snake enclosures go. And no one makes a good entry level heated plastic enclosure with a thermostat, let alone IR thermometer. So in our hobby, we basically have professional caging costing hundreds of dollars or piece together what is available at a pet shop and/or hardware store. And not everybody wants to breed and/or have multiples -hard as that might be for most of us to fathom!
I don't sell Flexwatt at my store. Nothing against it -and I still have most of my racks running on it now -but to send a customer out the door to strip wire and crimp their own isn't a good idea. I've had one fire from Flexwatt, and at least three overheatings that cost me animals. The problem with heat tape is, it can fail not just by stopping, but by getting hotter than it is supposed to. So first and foremost, put your thermostat probes on the tape. Doesn't matter if you set the thermostat at 150, if you are belly heating, put the probes on the tape! You'll also notice that 3" heat tape (10 watts) gets hotter than 11" heat tape with double the wattage (20 watts). But it makes sense because 3"/10watt= .27 watts/sq.in. whereas 11"/20watt= .15 watts/sq.in.
I figured this would work out the same in reptile heating pads, so I simply did the math. Zilla has the same watts per square inch in their large and their small (.1666 w./sq. in.), and their medium is just a bit higher. But rather than trust my silly calculator, I thought I'd put them to the test. In a 72 degree room (according to my temp gun), I plugged in the 3 popular Zilla sizes for 30 minutes, then temp gunned them. Just like on Mythbusters, I didn't lay them all on perfectly flat surfaces, control windage, or perform the experiments on multiple units and check for variation. This is a very lazy look at three new in the box heat pads, no more no less.
Large, 8 X 18 24 watts (.1666 w./sq.in.):
This was the only reading over 100 I was able to get.
Medium, 8 X 12, 18 watts (.1825 w./sq. in.):
I got this one as high as 103.8, but couldn't duplicate that when I had the camera ready.
Small, 6 X 8, 8 watt (.1666 w./sq. in.):
Well, this one made me eat my words. In my advice in the earlier thread I questioned the accuracy of the cooking thermometer the OP was using. I can hardly think of an application where this wouldn't need it's heat dispersed away if not downright insulated. The package says this unit is for a 10 to 20 gallon aquarium. A ten gallon is 10 X 20 inches, so the heat would be covering pretty much a full quarter of the enclosure. Glass is a good insulator, but it is very thin on a ten gallon tank. Considering 99% of people are just plugging them in direct and walking away, I bet these things have cooked some herps. Anyway, this is far from research, but I thought some of you might find it interesting.
