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Cutting down temperature

nicklandovich

nicklandovich

New member
Hey everyone, hoping to benefit from the knowledge and experience of people on here and here is my question; I have 3 10 gallon tanks set with there long ends running along one another (the short ends are facing front). For my heat I have the 25 watt 4.5m Zoomed heat cable plugged into a Zoomed rheostat. The cable is taped to the undersides of the tank, I leave 1inch gaps between my loops and the cable makes 3 'rows' on each tank. My issue is that even with the rheostat set almost to the off position I still occasionally reach 95 F. I keep a fair amount of substrate to bleed off some heat. What I really want is to find a way to use the rheostat in a more flexible manner. Even with the big dial I only have on or off.

Anyone dealt with this? I don't wish to change my core heating system, I would just like to modify or reconfigure what I already have.
 
Try putting a small slab of marble on the glass over the heat cable. I've placed an uncontrolled UTH on the bottom of a marble slab and with 1.5" of free air underneath the temperature was in the mid 80s. It might be worth a shot and you can get some tiles of marble at your local home improvement store most likely.
 
Rheostats are so difficult. Maybe save up for a less expensive thermostat? But the marble or slate should buy you some time.
 
If you are using any substrate that the snake can burrow under, then piling up the substrate is not an adequate method of controlling the heat. The snake may decide to burrow down and end up directly on the glass. The thick layer of substrate will have trapped heat down there, so it may be even hotter than 95 F.

I think those Zoomed rheostats are junk. I had the same problem as you when I bought one when I first got into snakes. I found that as a temporary solution, a dimmer switch from the hardware store gave me much more control than the Zoomed rheostat. A good thermostat is, of course, even better.

A marble tile or something similar also sounds like a reasonable solution. I haven't used anything like that myself.
 
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