Retaining Heat - would this work???

[StangWolf]

I've got a question spurred out of curiosity.

I read some where on here, I believe in this section, that you can use styrofoam to retain some heat in your tank if the UTHs aren't providing enough all by themselves.

Here are a few questions this sparked:

1) is it true first off?
2) if so, then do you put the styrofoam under the whole tank or just the UTHs?
3) would you want space between the styrofoam and the UTH?
4) it wouldn't run the risk of cracking the floor of the tank if there was no air space between the styrofoam and the bottom of the tank would it? Especially since the UTHs come with those little pegs to put on your tank to get it up off the surface it's sitting on.
5) and I seriously doubt it but I'll ask anyway: you wouldn't have to worry about any kind of fire hazard with it would you? what with wires and what not from the UTHs, I don't think you would, but ya never know.

that just threw all these weird questions bouncing around in my head, I've never heard of that before, but then again I haven't been part of the leopard gecko world for long either lol

try not to laugh at me :sweatdrop:

 

[98XJSport]

It would make sense that the styrofoam would reflect heat lost that is radiating down from your UTH, but not sure it I would go with it for fire/airflow reasons. Instead, I got some reflective heat tape, used for chimney's, etc. I know it will take the heat, and putting some on the top of my stand but still under the tank w/spacers raised my floor temp from a max of ~88 to upper 90's. Big help, I was actually able to use a thermostat instead of having it just on all the time

 

[moosassah]

I've used aluminum foil to radiate the heat up. It's worked & since you can throw it in the oven, no fire worries.

 

[StangWolf]

thanks guys,

just one question though that I'm not 100% clear on yet, do you put the reflective tape/foil taped up against the UTH's on the bottom of your tanks? Or do you just slip it underneath and let it lie on top of whatever your tank is sitting on?

I hope that makes sense

 

[98XJSport]

I stuck it to the surface of the stand my tank was on for my 20. However, I just used some to hold an unglued UTH, seems to be working fine for that as well. So, to answer your question, I dunno which works best but both seem to work.

 

[StangWolf]

ah that's cool ^^

maybe it doesn't really matter since there's still space underneath the tank with either method