plastic tub with heat?

I'm sure plenty of you house leos in tubs, since it seems very popular among reptile fans! A long long time ago I had leos in an aquarium tank so heating wasn't an issue. I do want to get back into them, now that I have some spare cash (maybe buy one, two tops,) but I have limited space.

Any way to use an under the tank heater? Or will it melt the plastic? I know many snake keepers use heat tape but I'm not familiar with how it works or how to place it. Thanks for the help!


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You can, but you will be relying on a thermostat to keep the UTH from overheating the plastic, so make sure you get a good thermostat. Heat tape is a little safer because it is lower wattage (but of course, accidents still can occur with any heating element).

I find heat tape actually gets hotter and generally is only off by one or two watts in either direction depending on the brand of UTH but YES you defenitly need a thermostat and it wont damage the plastic and if you are doing a rack you would want all the same brands of tubs and within that same brand, if you need to use different sized tubs, you should make sure they are the same series of tubs. For example, dont use Sterilites with a normal lid and then use a Sterilite that stacks differently and or has something like a hinged lid. You want to make sure the construction of the tubs is the same as the one you instal the probe in or you can end up with a thicker or thinner material resulting in bigger differences in temps.