Heating with thermostat Questions

[RoninSTi]

If someone could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

I have 4 tanks that I would like to control the temperature of. I have a 20g long with a sub adult leo. A 15g with a juvi leo. a 30g breeder with a juvi bearded, and a 15g with about 1000 dubia.

I would like to know the easiest way to accurately control the temperature in these units with a thermostat. I don't care if it's the cheapest, just the easiest. Now here are my questions...

Do I need a separate thermostat for each cage? Can 1 thermostat do the 3 cages that require similar conditions (the leos and dubias)?

Is there a unit the exists that allows me to have different temps in different tanks, like the zones part of a household thermostat?

I can't seem to find the answer so hopefully you guys can help.

 

[bman123]

You can't control three tanks with one thermostat. If you are using uth on each tank it's a bust for you, you can't do it. If you have flexwatt in one big strip then you can do it with one tstat but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

I've never seen a tstat with 3 probes and that's what you would need to control the temps of 3 different tanks. You can use a rheostat on each uth, it's similar to a tstat it's just harder to setup..

 

[ariana]

on the 2 leo tanks you could use one thermostat, since they both have the same heat requirements.
just make sure you have thermometers with probes for all the tanks.

 

[bman123]

I don't see how you could use one tstat with two tanks if you are using two uth's even if they are for leos. No two uth's I have used have been the same, some have hot spots and some get hotter then others. Maybe if you used ultratherm uth which stops at what 95 degrees but even then you wouldn't need a tstat for a ultrather
as the temp will be perfect for a Leo.

Uth's like zoo med or exo Terra fluctuate with the room temp so when the temp changes in the room so does the temp of the uth. Please feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong but a tstat with only one probe cannot correctly monitor and keep the temp of two tanks the same when using a uth.

I have used two tanks with a uth on each tank in the same room right next to each other with the same animal and substrate. I mean same everything and the temps were different 90% of the time. I have never seen a dual probe tstat before, maybe they do exist but I have never seen one before. The tstat would have to monitor two different tanks and change the temp of each one Independently.

 

[bman123]

Please let me know if you find a tstat capable of doing this. Now if you had the tanks on say a wooden stand and you ran a piece of say 11 inch flexwatt underneath both tanks then you could use a tstat to control the temp of the flex watt.

You would need both tanks to be setup exactly the same way or you would get a temp difference between the two tanks. The tstat would keep the flexwatt at whatever temp you made it be but you still have to heat the glass and the substrate and if anything is different the temps will be different between the two.

 

[sammer021486]

Since you have 2 leos, a bearded dragon and roaches and all of them have different heat requirements. The only thermostat that is going to meet all of the requirements in one unit is the Spyder Robotics Herpstat PRO, which is one unit with 4 individually controlled thermostats. It has a nice price tag at $319, but can be considered worth it depending on which route you would like to go.

If placing a thermostat on each tank, I highly recommend the RANCO/Johnson thermostats if you are looking for inexpensive digital thermostats. They are easy to set up and cost $80 if pre-wired, not pre-wired, the Ranco is ~$50 and the Johnson is ~$60. As for analog thermostats the only ones I have used have been the Zoo Med 500R and they have worked good for me. The only reason I upgraded was for more outlets on the thermostat and the cost of the Zoo Meds were $45 (From my supplier) and the unwired Ranco was $50. So I went with the unwired ranco because I could then wire the rancos to work with my shelving unit.


You can successfully run multiple tanks on one thermostat though if the set up is the same and so are the animal's requirements.

I am successfully running four 10 gallons off of one Ranco. All of the heat mats are Exo-Terra 8"x8" mats @ 8W each. I have the probe in one tank and monitor the tanks with two thermometers and an IR gun. They are all within a degree of each other.

If you wanted to you could move the other leo into the 15 gal and move the roaches into the 20 and as long as the tanks are at the same height and have the same mat model on the tank, it is possible to control them with one thermostat.

Hope that helped you out

 

[TFerguson]

Yeah, I think I'm with Bman on this one. While you could run multiple tanks off the same thermostat, if the tanks were set up identically (substrate, size, etc.), were using the same brand and model number UTH, had the tanks in the same nominal environment, and the temp requirements for the animals in each tank were the same... I still think it's a bad idea.

Here's why... This setup would have the temperature probe in one of the X number of tanks being regulated by the thermostat. If the UTH in that tank fails, ie provides no heat, then the temperature in that tank will plummet. To compensate, the thermostat will turn the UTHs for all the tanks 'on' and leave them 'on' to compensate. Temperatures in the other tanks will skyrocket.

So yeah, to be safe, you need separate thermostats for each tank, or a thermostat that has a separate temperature probe for each heat source being controlled.

T Ferguson

 

[bman123]

Yeah I didn't think they made a tstat with multiple probes that can independently control the temp of each tank if they do have one I'm sure it's alot more then $100

I personally wouldn't even attempt to do it like you are saying. Just because no two heat pads are the exact same. Some have hot spots some get hotter then others so realistically you can't put the tstat probe on one uth and expect it to control more then one uth without fluctuation.

I had 2 exo Terra uth mediums before. One hit 120degrees farenheit and the other was hitting a constant 100. The one I have now in my Leo tank maxxes out at 98 and that's perfect for a Leo as I use 4 single sheets of newspaper and then a layer of porcelain tile. My temp stays between 90-98 depending on room temp which is normally 76.

By all means feel free to try it if you want but I don't see how a stat with a single probe can honestly keep the temp the same in more then one tank.

 

[sammer021486]

Yeah, I think I'm with Bman on this one. While you could run multiple tanks off the same thermostat, if the tanks were set up identically (substrate, size, etc.), were using the same brand and model number UTH, had the tanks in the same nominal environment, and the temp requirements for the animals in each tank were the same... I still think it's a bad idea.

Here's why... This setup would have the temperature probe in one of the X number of tanks being regulated by the thermostat. If the UTH in that tank fails, ie provides no heat, then the temperature in that tank will plummet. To compensate, the thermostat will turn the UTHs for all the tanks 'on' and leave them 'on' to compensate. Temperatures in the other tanks will skyrocket.

So yeah, to be safe, you need separate thermostats for each tank, or a thermostat that has a separate temperature probe for each heat source being controlled.

T Ferguson

Yeah I didn't think they made a tstat with multiple probes that can independently control the temp of each tank if they do have one I'm sure it's alot more then $100

I personally wouldn't even attempt to do it like you are saying. Just because no two heat pads are the exact same. Some have hot spots some get hotter then others so realistically you can't put the tstat probe on one uth and expect it to control more then one uth without fluctuation.

I had 2 exo Terra uth mediums before. One hit 120degrees farenheit and the other was hitting a constant 100. The one I have now in my Leo tank maxxes out at 98 and that's perfect for a Leo as I use 4 single sheets of newspaper and then a layer of porcelain tile. My temp stays between 90-98 depending on room temp which is normally 76.

By all means feel free to try it if you want but I don't see how a stat with a single probe can honestly keep the temp the same in more then one tank.

I agree with both of you, but at the same time I do not. It is not always cost effective to run an individual Tstat on each tank. I have 13 leopard geckos and since heat tape is uninsured in Canada I have the option to either heat with heat cable or heats mats as lamps are not an option for me.

I have had excellent success with my setup, I am not being ignorant to the fact that I know different heat mats of the same make and model can function differently. I have been extremely lucky in that all of the exo-terras that I have purchased work excellent with the setup and all maintain the same temps within a degree of each other.

I am not sure how it works, but a RANCO can be hooked up with 4 probes in series which will allow it to monitor 4 separate heat sources and produce and average to regulate the temperature. I am sure that it would be pretty effective at preventing extreme over heating of the heat source. As it would take 2 of the mats failing at the same time to spike the other 2 mats over the acceptable heating level.

There are also may breeders that run multiple racks off of one thermostat.

Yeah I didn't think they made a tstat with multiple probes that can independently control the temp of each tank if they do have one I'm sure it's alot more then $100

The only company that I know of that makes a thermostat that can do as you are mentioning is Spyder Robotics. They have two thermostats that have multiple probes to run different sources, the Herp Stat II and Herp Stat PRO.

As mentioned above the RANCO can sort of do the same, but it uses one Tstat with the 4 probes in series to take an average of the 4 sources.