Heating Mat Choice?

[Phruit Dish]

I have an exo terra digital combo hygrometer/thermometer on the cool side of my tank and a zoo med probed digital thermometer on the warm side. I also run a hydrofarm probed thermostat (the one recommended here) to regulate my UTH. All equipment has been running since January and has been regularly checked with a temp gun, and all this said, I have no complaints. For thermometers, either brand seems sufficient. I went with what worked best for me. Now, for thermostats, I wouldn't touch either zoo med or exo terra -- or anything analog, for that matter -- with a 49-and-a-half foot pole. I recommend either the hydrofarm thermostat or one of the higher-end precision thermostats recommended elsewhere on this forum, like Herpstat. The hydrofarm has been sufficient, from personal experience, but you will get some variation in temps, somewhere in the range of +/-2 degrees F. The more expensive equipment is more precise, with a smaller range, if there's any variation at all.

I second the recommendation to affix the UTH to something other than the tank itself. I've also read about sticking it to a cut-to-fit piece of acrylic, then using foil heating tape (it may have another name...having a hard time recalling it) to affix it to the tank surface. Either method should work fine and save you a lot of trouble!

 

[Nythain]

Mine never came with a probe


Just a good old Canadian Alberta girl

You sure you got a thermostat and not a thermometer? It's sort of hard for a thermostat to regulate temperature if it has no way of telling the temperature. Unless you're using like, a house thermostat or something wonky, just about every t-stat I know of comes with a probe of some sort.

 

[Shaggy]

Ultratherm!
http://www.reptilebasics.com/ultratherm-heat-pads
Steady, well built, low power draw, moveable. Very good gear.
As for wattage used, I think leaving the TV on all night, once, would use more electricity than several months' worth of electricity of an UTH on full blast.

 

[hyunae_le]

Thanks everyone this REALLY helps! So if a UTH can be used as the only heating source for corn snakes, can it be used as the only heat source for other snakes too? Such as a ball python? (If anyone knows?)

 

[smigon]

Thanks everyone this REALLY helps! So if a UTH can be used as the only heating source for corn snakes, can it be used as the only heat source for other snakes too? Such as a ball python? (If anyone knows?)

Corns don't need overhead lighting, and the heat mats help provide belly heat which is good for digestion. For corns a UTH is really all you need for heating purposes.

I know next to nothing about boas or pythons, but from what I have gathered they do also need a light source. You can Google it or wait a bit, I know there are many people here who have balls and can answer that in a more definitive way.

 

[Nythain]

You could probably get away with just a UTH for some other species, but definitely not all. It really varies from species to species. A UTH alone will have a harder time providing adequate heat for the more tropical species, and is near useless for arboreal species. Ball Pythons are pretty lazy so a regulated UTH is probably more than sufficient for them. Since my boa has a larger enclosure, she gets a UTH and a ceramic heat bulb which works out well. I know she can thermoregulate, and she'll curl up on the UTH for extra digestion. When she was in a smaller enclosure she just had a UTH, and before I owned her, she just had an overhead heat light.