Acrylic Tank Heating

[Nisrene]

Hi. I am new here and was wondering if anyone could give me any advice on how to heat an acrilic tank.

I have a 55gal acrilic tank with the measurements of 47'' long 20'' high 13'' deep

I want to use this for a new BRB that I will be getting in the next few weeks, so i want to work on the setup right now, and dont know how to get the proper heating for it, considering that it is acrylic and i don't want to melt it on accident, or do anything to it that will endanger the snake.

Thank you for you help and feedback.

[smy_749]

whatever you choose to use, get it on a thermostat so if it does malfunction it will just be turned off. Your two typical heating options are undertank heat and ceramic heat / or just a heat emitting red bulb. I like the red bulbs on thermostats because they look cool at night, and will simply shut off when they burn out. The undertank heat is harder to tell if its malfunctioning.

just don't forget to invest in a thermostat.

[Starbuck]

for a brb you arent going to want very high temps anyway (under 90 degrees at the animals level), so any of the above mentioned heat elements would suffice, when attached to a thermostat as smy said

With BRBs, humidity is a high concern. You may want to think about an UTH with thermostat; use a temp probe (or better yet, a temp gun) to measure the temperature that the UTH is producing at the top of the substrate as well as below.

I would be cautious of red lights since you will be trying to keep humidity up; but that being said that is what i use for 50% of my cages (i keep colubrids though). Both CHEs and red lights can dry out the tank; but if you are misting frequently they may work. my medium CHE (cant remember wattage, sorry) heats up to ~600 F at the bulb, and 18 inches away is roughly 90 degrees. Even on a dimmer, this may be insufficient for your acrylic tank and could melt it.

I would go with UTH or heat tape (or RHP? dont know much about those) in your case, but the KEY here is that you MUST have a thermostat as well.


LOL SMY, my computer keeps autocorrecting you to 'amy', sorry

[smy_749]

My name is sami, I just always use smy because its my initials and almost looks like my name at the same time lol You can call me amy though hahaha