Flex, RHP, or both?

[CrotalusFan]

I recently picked up a pair of Mojave Rattlesnakes and am not sure the best way to go. The individual I purchased from told me that he's kept them at nothing but room temperature for years. I don't feel comfortable with that. So my question:

They're currently in a divided AP enclosure (24X24X12) with an ambient room temperature of around 70 degrees. In your opinion can I get away with flexwatt alone? The enclosure is currently set up with an RHP on each side of the divider with no flexwatt. However; if flexwatt alone would be acceptable for this species I can utilize the panels in another enclosure and save myself $200. I find it hard to provide much of a gradient with the RHP in my other 2X2 setups so what I typically do is provide a drop at night.

I understand that flex does little to nothing to increase ambient temps but based on the seller using nothing I'm thinking flex may actually provide an acceptable environment. Opinions?

[millertime89]

Yes, you can get away with just flexwatt and a t-stat. That's what I use on all of my plastic cages. It does a perfectly good job with ambient heat as long as the room temp is sufficient, at 70 it'll work just fine. My hot spot is 88ish and ambient in the cages is 78ish and my room temp is 70-72.

[CrotalusFan]

Appreciate the real world example.....That's exactly what I was looking for. Thank You millertime!

[pet_snake_78]

On my AP cages, I have to crank the THG up to 104 to get 88F through the floor of the enclosure and newspaper. The room is about 75F. One of the reasons I am liking racks better is the THG doesn't need to work as hard but since they don't use a lot of power I don't know if it really makes any difference unless you have a really large collection.

[CrotalusFan]

Thanks for that....All of my other enclosures are heated with RHP but for the Mojave I thought the flex may work pretty well. Figure I'll set one up over the weekend and see what I think. One benefit I may have is that it'll be stacked on top of another enclosure running RHP right under the flex.