Need help with heating

[MooseChild]

Hi Guys

Just like to start of stating I am new here so if this is the incorrect place to post this please do let me know and if I do, do something wrong please also let me know.

Ok so I am NEW to the reptile hobby and looked everywhere for this but cant find anything specifically for what I am looking for or even close. I have never had a reptile besides a tortoise that lived outside in an avery. I would like to get a ball python, I have a 243 liter (64 gallon (120cm x 45cm x 45cm) glass tank, that I have put some polystyrene on both the back and one side and plan on putting it on the top as well, I know glass tanks are not the best but it is the best I could get that wasn't ridiculously expensive or really ugly. so I put a 20 watt heat pad (355mm x 360mm) attached to a tile
(I heard the heat could cause glass to crack) and connected to a thermostat (rc-116m) and under the tile and on the sides some polystyrene to stop heating escaping out the bottom and sides. and then my substrate (I used about 5mm of fine sand on top of the tile and then about another 5mm of organic potting soil) now I have realised that, it is not enough to heat the tank to the right temps. I live in South Africa where it can get quite hot, but also quite cold. the tank has to stay out side in a room that is not very well insulated, this morning for example was 12 degrees Celsius, so my question is would it be possible for me to heat the tank up to the right temps with a 60w ceramic heater, as I would not like to run the electricity bill up too much and I also don't want to get a snake if it will die. And one last thing when I was running the heat mat last night the air temp in the cage was 18°C (64.4°F) but the soil on top of the heat mat was 27°C (82.4°F) would that be enough to heat the snake through the night until it later heated up in the day?

Any help would be greatly appreciated
THANKS

[TRD]

UTH will not increase ambient temps inside of an enclosure by much, it just heats what it contacts with and the wavelengths it puts out to heat are too long to heat up air.

Your best bet is to run a CHE on a stat 24x7, but likely 60W will not be enough. CHE also emits IR-c, so it will only heat up what the beam will hit and nothing else. There's also a new product from Arcadia called the 'Deep Heat Projector' that is better for heating animals as it emits IR-a and IR-b and little IR-c. IR-c doesn't penetrate the skin much so while the outer most layer of the animal can be nice and warm, the inside will not be heated very effectively. I'm not sure if Arcadia products are being sold in SA.

Ball pythons, while from Africa, are from regions were temperature doesn't fluctuate much. So going full temperate on them is likely not a good idea.

[MooseChild]

Originally Posted by TRD

UTH will not increase ambient temps inside of an enclosure by much, it just heats what it contacts with and the wavelengths it puts out to heat are too long to heat up air.

Your best bet is to run a CHE on a stat 24x7, but likely 60W will not be enough. CHE also emits IR-c, so it will only heat up what the beam will hit and nothing else. There's also a new product from Arcadia called the 'Deep Heat Projector' that is better for heating animals as it emits IR-a and IR-b and little IR-c. IR-c doesn't penetrate the skin much so while the outer most layer of the animal can be nice and warm, the inside will not be heated very effectively. I'm not sure if Arcadia products are being sold in SA.

Ball pythons, while from Africa, are from regions were temperature doesn't fluctuate much. So going full temperate on them is likely not a good idea.

Thanks for the help man

Unfortunately they do not sell the deep heat projectors here, or much else for that matter, unfortunately, here the hobby is not big so we don't have the latest stuff to work with, so unfortunately it looks like I won't get a snake for now but thanks for the help.