How to heat custom enclosure

[charper39]

Hello, My custom enclosure built for a bearded dragon origanally, has tile for a floor. It is a 4 foot by 3 foot enclosure made of melamine. I was wondering how i would heat it. It is heated on one side with lights but I was wanting to divide it in the middle and made 2 2' by 3' enclosures. One for the females and one for the male. I was wondering if I could put a UTH under the tile of the second enclosure to heat it? And also how many leos could i put into this tank?

Thank you.

 

[acpart]

I don't see why you couldn't use a UTH. I'd prefer, if it were me, to use zoo-med heat cable. That way you can tape it in any configuration you want. I just posted somewhere else that I keep 3-4 geckos in 500 sq. inches of floorspace. I also keep 1 gecko in a minimum of 200 sq. inches (a 10 gallon tank) and 2 geckos in 360 sq. inches. If you do the math, you could probably figure out a reasonable number of geckos.

Aliza

 

[charper39]

Are you saying that I could put the heat cable in the enclosure underneath the tile or outside the viv?

 

[acpart]

Probably outside the viv on the bottom. I don't know how well melamine will transfer heat so that could be a problem. Try on the outside, and if that doesn't work, try under the tile. The heat cable was made to even be wrapped around things to heat. After re-reading your post, I see that you may want to use this for beardies. I have to say that I find no need to use bottom heat for my beardie.

Aliza

 

[charper39]

Its actually for leopard geckos. I am going to start breeding them. Would 12 inches tall be enough for a leopard gecko? I was going to split it tall wide so that instead of 2 ft tall each cage was 1 foot tall. That way instead of two cages I have four. One for females and one for my male and 2 incase I get two more males. I am also getting a rack for hatchlings and It will be able to hold them from hatchling-adult, incase I decide to keep any. I am also getting some 20 gallons just in case I need to quarentine any sick geckos or get another male gecko.

 

[acpart]

I keep my geckos in cages that are only about 8" tall. The only thing to be careful about, is having enough ventilation. If you divide the cage horizontally and have belly heat for both the top and the bottom, the bottom one may get really hot and steamy. This happened to me when I got 2 stackable front opening tanks and velcro-ed one on top of the other. Eventually I had to take off the velcro and put some spacers between them because the bottom one was way too hot and humid.

ALiza

 

[charper39]

Well I thought of putting insulation on the top one under the tile with heat cable on top of the insulation. Would that work? And what would be a good thermostat to control the rack and what would be a ood one to control the cage? I was thinking of getting a herpstat ND for the cages, but would it be okay to just use one herpstat for the 4 cages I plan to make out of the custom cage? I was thinking of using a Johnson on the rack. But I just recently found a herpstat that can control 2 cages, so I was thinking of using one probe in the custom enclosure and 1 in the rack. Would that be oaky?

 

[charper39]

Could I use 11 inch heat tape across the back that way the back 1/3 of each cage is heated. It would be cheaper than cable too.

 

[Anejodave]

Melamine will outgas more when heated

 

[charper39]

I dont understand what your saying?