Heating and lighting set ups. What do you do? - experts Forum at VenomousReptiles.org

Heating and lighting set ups. What do you do?	Reply
by Atrox788 on March 9, 2007	Mail this to a friend!
Hey guys and gals, I was curious as to what everybody does for heating/lighting of their keeps. I personaly use natural light, a space heater for the main heat source and heat pads for a basking spot. My herp room recives enough light from out side to warrent not useing artifical lighting, the space heater keeps the room's temp between 75 and 85 degrees depending on where the snake cage is postioned in proxcimity to the heater and heat pads for the hot spot. I have maintained this set up now for several years and it has worked great. Since I now only keep North American species it works great though i would be inclined to use at least artifical lighting if I had exotics, fearing that the light cycle in the winter may mess with them. Anywho, just curious as to what everyone else does. Thanks everyone! Happy Friday!!! Jeremy

RE: Heating and lighting set ups. What do you do?	Reply
by Rob_Carmichael on March 9, 2007	Mail this to a friend!
Just a question; if you keep only temperate animals, why do you have a space heater with such high ambient temperatures? If each cage has its own heat source you should be fine even with a cooler background temp (in fact, it would probably be a lot better and safer for your animals). At my facility, that has exotic and native venomous herps under the same roof, we keep our ambient temps set at around 70-72 deg F....never any higher if we can avoid it. Rattlesnakes in particular are very prone to heat stress. I'd be far more worried about a space heater malfunctioning and frying the entire collection. Just something to consider. So, with that being said, we use a combination of heating/lighting for our exhibits and off display animals: exhibit: We either use a combination of a quality fluorescent accompanied with a pro product radiant heat panel, OR, a good quality incadescent (mostly Verilux) that provides both light and heat. The herp exhibit room does have many windows to provide indirect ambient light but the additional lighting has proved effective. off exhibit: same as above although we utilize more racks into this area. These rooms also have windows so they can plenty of indirect light. ALL HEAT DEVICES ARE CONNECTED to a Spyder Robotics thermostat. Hope this helps, Rob Carmichael, Curator The Wildlife Discovery Center Lake Forest, IL

RE: Heating and lighting set ups. What do you do?	Reply
by Atrox788 on March 9, 2007	Mail this to a friend!
My aplogies that was a typo. I ment to say the cage temps range from 75-85 depending on their proxcimity to the sapce heater, even with the pads. I use the pads to give a slightly warmer area for basking but only slightly. My temps are roughly 75 on the cool side, 85 on the warm, according to the temp gun I have (I want to get a more reliable thermometer for each cage however)and are all positiond to have one side near the heater, one side away. The pads are all on thermostats as well and are set on the lowest setting. The basking spot is really on a few degrees warmer then the actual cage temps but enough to give a warmer spot if they so choose. As for the space heater, I may not be explaining what i have well lol. Its not one of those heater coil types, its oil i think or some sort of liquid in it. It is also on a thermostat and cant go above 85 degrees. My enclosures are large, 5 ft wide x 3 ft high x 3ft deep and provide plenty or rooom to thermo regulate. Again, didnt mean to sound like I was roasting my snakes LOL I realy need to start typing my post from home rather then work where I am constantly distracted.

RE: Heating and lighting set ups. What do you do?	Reply
by Rob_Carmichael on March 9, 2007	Mail this to a friend!
Oil filled heaters are even more scary to me but hey, it's your set up and as long as you are comfortable with it, that's all that matters. As I said before, with temperate climate herps, your background temps can be relatively cool as long as each cage has its own heat pad/lamp/etc. I would still ditch the space heater. Rob Carmichael, Curator The Wildlife Discovery Center

RE: Heating and lighting set ups. What do you do?	Reply
by Atrox788 on March 9, 2007	Mail this to a friend!
point taken. BTW, there is no way the one I have can be scarier then the heater coil type which could burn down the house. This particular heater dosent get hot enough to burn upon touch and is kept at a low setting with a thermostat. I think my set up is safe as I have been for the past 8 years. I will see if the heat pads are enough now but considering the cooler weather as of late (its not been very warm this past month) I will stick to my set up untill mid april when I normaly turn it off anyway and simply close the AC vents so it dosent get too cool. Thanks for mentioning your set up. Regards, Jeremy

RE: Heating and lighting set ups. What do you do?	Reply
by SnakeEyes2006 on March 11, 2007	Mail this to a friend!
I saw this post and had to ad my 2 cents in.. I have a floor model gas heater set at the lowest setting in my tin building, and it keeps the inside temps between 70-85 degrees, I did have to keep checking this until I got a big fan that has a thermostat set in it, and when the temperature gets above 85 the fan kicks on and cools it back down to around 77 and then kicks back off till it warms back up... This fan is as big as a floor model box fan and has a RPM switch and it can be switched to blow forward or backwards, I have plans on wireing 2 more box fans to it this summer, but for now it seems to do the trick, my cages are 3ft tallx6ft longx 3ft deep, I have 3 of those cages, 12 10 gallon tanks, 2 35 gallon tanks, 1 75 gallon tank, and 2 60 gallon tanks. And all my reps seem to like it in there...LOL I have not had any complaints (deaths) and hope not to.. LOL Shawn

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