At first I had a small ZooMed UTH under eat connected to a rheostat. Everything was great and stable for 4 days and then it got too hot for some reason even though I didn't change the settings on the rheostat. The other UTH that's connected to the same rheostat is fine.
I got a bigger UTH since that one was too small anyway, and glued bottlecaps on the bottom of the tub to increase the airflow underneath. Left the rheostat on low. Everything was fine for a night and then within a couple hours the next it got hot enough to melt the plastic a little. I was checking the temps with a temp gun every couple hours and it was stable. So I'm not sure what happened.
Then someone recommended a human heating pad. So I bought a new tub and a Sunbeam heating pad. Everything was perfect until I realized that it has a auto turn off after 2 hours and has to be manually turned back on.
I looked but they don't sell them without the auto shut off anymore. I could try opening it up and disabling the timer on the circuit, but I'd rather take an easier route if there is one because if I screw it up then I can't return it.
What could I do with the UTH to not attach it to the tub, but still have it heat the tub enough? I'd get a thermostat, but at this point I don't trust the UTH on the plastic anymore because the second time the heating pad wasn't even that hot. I could touch the tub and it was warm, not hot, and it still melted a little.
The tub I'm using is a Sterlite tub
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