Homemade Enclosure Help

[Luthien]

Hello,
So I have a home made enclosure that was used for my bearded dragon, I'm turning it into a Corn Snake enclosure though.

I have one problem that I'm trying to figure out, the bottom is made of some really thick wood so there is no way I could put a heat pad under there and the heat will come through, let alone all heat pads say do not use with wood!

So I've heard some really bad things about light, not going to use them. How about the substrate heaters or those rock heaters that have no hot spots? Anyone familiar with these things?

I've attached a picture of the enclosure when it was still being used for my Beardie. It's been changed a bit now though, the lights have been removed, I'm planning on just using a normal lightbulb for a light source (no heat). All holes have been sealed up and the tiles have been removed and replaced with newspaper (for baby snake) and later I'll be adding Aspen.

Give me ideas!
Thanks!

[reptiledude987]

Yes a uth wont help you at all with that. Stay away from heat rocks as well. I think your best bet is to get heat tape or a heat cable and connect it to a thermostat to regulate your temps. I have a wood terrarium with 4 compartments that house 4 BP's Im using heat cable with thermostat and temps are perfect. for lightinh so the tanks are bright and can see inside without a flashlight lol. Is some pot light style led lights from home depot so the lights dont produce heat that could burn them is they were to climb around it.

[Luthien]

Ok so we've established that it's going to be a heat cable. Now my question is, I found the Zoo Med Heat Cable and it has good reviews on it but what do I do with it? (Newbie here)

Does the cable go right in the encloser where ever you want to put it? What if the snakes lays right against it? Won't it get burnt? Or do you wrap the cable around the outside of the tank? If so will it be alright against wood?

[reptiledude987]

So with the heat cable you're going to take it and coil it back and forth about an inch apart on one third of the terrarium. I kept mine in place with a staple gun with a wire guide. It wont be hot enough to burn the snake as long as youre using a thermostat. Plus it wont get direct contact to the snake as the bedding will seperate the animal from the cable. The heat cable wont get hot enough to burn the wood if it did ur snake would be cooked so no worries there.

[Luthien]

That's what I figured because they say you can wrap these cables around branches for your snake so they snake has to come into contact with it then. I was just worried for 1. When the snake is a baby and I just have newspaper (going to have contact then) and 2. When it's older and buries down into the shavings.

Yes I will definatly have a thermostat for it!

Thanks for all your help!!

[reptiledude987]

no problem at all. For lighting the best thing I could find was LED lights from Home Depot in the lighting department. Depending on how many and what you mean they range from anywhere from 20 to 80 bucks. The ones I got were 80 and it gave me 5 pot lights I needed four so I've got one extra. It wasn't a feature I really cared about because everything's on the timer but it also came with a remote and I can change the colors and make the lights blue red green orange purple whatever but I just stick with white. For the 4 LED lights and everything that came with it I found 80 bucks to be the best deal I could find for that

[Luthien]

I've heard different things on lights. I've heard they don't even need light (it's just for our purpose to see and find them) and then some people say LED lights are good for them.

I was thinking of just using my dome with a normal 40 watt lightbulb for lighting purpose and then having the heat source under his/her hide

[reptiledude987]

the problem with having that kind of bulb inside the hide is if they start climbing on it they can burn themselves on that. The reason I like the LEDs is because they don't produce heat so it makes it easy for my heat to be regulated with the cable and it lights up the tank so that I can see them as well. It's not the lights are completely unnecessary it is good for them to have a proper photocycle so that they have day and night cycle especially if you intend on breeding them by shortening the daytime cycle mimics the shorter days of the winter months

[Luthien]

The light fixture would be outside the enclosure so the snake couldn't get to it but now I like the idea of the LED, thanks! I'll go that route then but still the light will be outside. Lol

[Luthien]

Would the National Geographic LED Aquarium Light work? I'm looking for something that I don't have to buy a dome for, this one just clips onto the outside

[reptiledude987]

This is my wood laminate setup and the extra light and remote from home depot.