A qustion about heating and Athena in her new cage :)

[coldbloodedcate]

This is Athena's new cage, it is 2x3, and this is just a temporary cage for a few months while she grows before she gets her adult cage. She is 3 1/2 feet long.
Also a question, what do you guys think the best method for heating a cage like this? I was thinking an extra large heating pad, but I have heard of using heat panels or flex watt?

[revent]

Honestly I find that heat pads and flexwatt are more or less the same except flexwatt is cheaper and a little more do it yourself. I would probably just use flexwatt on a thermostat myself.

[coldbloodedcate]

Also I built the cage myself, and thanks to revent for your answer

[formica]

nice build :) what is the enclosure made from?

my preference for terrestrial snakes is always heat mats, radiant panels are great aswell, but they are more useful for arboreal reptiles, and for increasing ambient temps - you can use them to make a floor basking area, but they use allot more energy that way, and the type of matirial used to make the enclosure may restrict this (for eg PVC may not handle the temp above the panel if it reaches 65C)

[coldbloodedcate]

Thanks Formica! And the cage is actually made out of plywood, I obviously sanded and sealed the crap out of it though :)

[formica]

good work, looks great :)

some plywoods can block heat from heat mats, i've never used plywood thick enough to come across that issue myself, but it is an issue people come up against; RHP would be the best option in that case - unless you wanted to add a false floor to install the heat mat inside and seal it up, obviously this is more work if the heat mat fails

If you already have a heat mat, then its worth testing it before investing in an RHP which are generally 4-5 times the price (in the UK at least, but we dont have that many manufacturers of them here).