heat mats

hey folks. wat is your views on heat matts? would you just use reflector bulb onto thermostat.

i use heat mats on all my racks and vivs for a hot spot,but my reptile room is heated for ambeiant temp

If you are useing racks then heat mats are fine as the enclosed space holds heat better giving you a good ambeiant temp,but if you using vivs you may find a heat mat will not give you a good ambeiant temp.Bulbs or ceramics maybe a better option.

I use heat mats in all my vivs, it gives a belly heat which greatly aids digestion for snakes and is equivalent to them basking on sun-warmed rocks in the wild. Only in my larger vivs do I back this up with a guarded ceramic heater as larger vivs are harder to heat. I personally wouldn't use reflector bulbs as the only heat source for snakes as when the light goes out at night they will cool down to room temperature - which may be too cool for them especially if digesting food. A reflector bulb on a thermostat will also flick on and off quite a bit and stress out the snakes.

morelia wrote:I use heat mats in all my vivs, it gives a belly heat which greatly aids digestion for snakes and is equivalent to them basking on sun-warmed rocks in the wild. Only in my larger vivs do I back this up with a guarded ceramic heater as larger vivs are harder to heat. I personally wouldn't use reflector bulbs as the only heat source for snakes as when the light goes out at night they will cool down to room temperature - which may be too cool for them especially if digesting food. A reflector bulb on a thermostat will also flick on and off quite a bit and stress out the snakes.

Karl I agree with most of that so don't need to comment more apart from to say that if you use a DIMMING thermostat on a light bulb the light dimms as and when required, rather than going of and no like it would if used on a mat stat or regular on/off stat.

The best solution may be ceramics with a dimmer stat as the snake would get a day/night cycle. However this is a bit expensive to implement.

in my big vivs I have ceramics on a stat and for lighting I have those under cupboard flourescent tubes u get for under kitchen cupboards-seems to do the job for me okay, however my rep room sits at an ambient temp usually- except for recently when I have had to turn all the lights off and keep the windows open as the temp in the room was unreal-will save me a bit on leccy tho!

thoth wrote:The best solution may be ceramics with a dimmer stat as the snake would get a day/night cycle. However this is a bit expensive to implement.

Ceramics are actually best used with PULSE stats.

KayDee wrote:

thoth wrote:The best solution may be ceramics with a dimmer stat as the snake would get a day/night cycle. However this is a bit expensive to implement.

Ceramics are actually best used with PULSE stats.

D'oh meant to say pulse stats

thoth wrote:

KayDee wrote:

thoth wrote:The best solution may be ceramics with a dimmer stat as the snake would get a day/night cycle. However this is a bit expensive to implement.

Ceramics are actually best used with PULSE stats.

D'oh meant to say pulse stats

Lol, no worries.