Energy efficient

[Plumbstring]

Is there a way to make my hobby a bit more energy efficient with keeping my reptiles?

[SWDK]

Use thermostats that are proportional. Heat tape is very efficient compared to ceramic or heat lamps.

[Plumbstring]

Cool I didn't know that I run ceramic lamps

[dannybgoode]

Heat tape is efficient but (and not wishing to flog any deceased equines) isn't necessarily the best choice for some reptiles.

Agree re pulse thermostats on ceramics.

I believe all reptiles benefit from a nighttime drop in temperatures consummate to that they'd experience in the wild and of course lower temps=less energy used. They have evolved over millions of years to thermoregulate properly day and night with these drops so shouldn't be a concern in terms of husbandry. I have a paper on it somewhere also on how temperature drops are important for a reptiles circadian rhythms.

I'm trying to work out whether actually a properly heated viv would use less energy if the room it was in were not heated also (depending on where you live of course). Here in England particularly in winter people try and keep the ambient temperatures of the snake rooms up using central heating and I wonder if this uses more energy than relying on the viv heater which should have to work a little harder but it's heating a very local space. Note this is one area that radiant heat sources win for me over tape or uth's. May be something I experiment with when I move house.

If you use lighting for viewing rather than heating then invest in some low power led strip lighting. This uses a handful of watts. Far less even that a fluorescent tube.