rope light as heat source?

[sophia]

Yep there abouts, but one side note, for a basking spot in the back right hand corner, you can put down a piece of acrylic, or a rubbermaid container over a coil of the lights. My Boa has found her own spot on the perch next to the coil of the lights and it works wonders, the bloods lay in the back corner. With the ball cage, we're going to run thiers a little differently, doubling up on one end and putting in a seperate basking spot on the bottom and when we move Ms. Tia over to the arboreal cage, we're going to run some strands under shelves, I'm using a cheat though. We're buying acrylic cutting boards at Walmart and mounting those to shelving brackets!!! LOL Cheap, warm, asthetically pleasing and effective! <G>

Now in one or two of our cages where the basking spot just isn't warm enough we use heat tape, sometimes you just have to, but the lights keep the enclosures plenty warm enough with a good heat gradient and as insulated as they are by being laminated over 3/4" oak and pine with coats of poly to boot, they stay warm all night, even when the windows are open on a 58 to 60 degree night like last night, they didn't drop below 75 degrees.

You're in Detroit, there should be some supply houses where you can buy used office furniture and store equipment, those are the type display cases we're using and we're buying them for $20.00 a piece and putting about $50 more into each one! So we're getting 5 and 6 foot long by 2 foot deep and 18" to 21" high enclosures for less than $100 plus labor of course.

Tay