Hey guys!
As I’ve always found answers on this forum for whatever issues/questions I had, I would like to ask for your advice. After a motorbike accident I found myself in a wheelchair for a few months, so to not go crazy from boredom, I decided to build a wooden enclosure for my ball python (didn’t want a PVC cage as I wanted it to somewhat match my furniture + there are none for sale in my country).
Although it is a wooden enclosure, I am not worried about water/humidity damage.
It is extremely difficult to find radiant heat panels in my country, id even say that its extremely difficult to find any high-quality reptile products in general (dimming and pulse thermostats, PVC cages, rack systems, just to name a few), besides Arcadia products (which I love)! So much so, that i am considering opening a reptile supply e-shop for higher tier products to help others find what they need, so that they don’t have to settle for the cheap and inadequate products and risk the health of their animals.
Now, I managed to import a few Microclimate Evo Connected 3 thermostats for my enclosures and a matching amount of 90W 41cm x 51cm radiant heat panels. – Couldn’t get a stronger W rating as they were larger and wouldn’t fit in my 60cm deep enclosure when considering the 3D background depth etc.
As I have no experience with radiant heat panels, I am still waiting for them to be delivered so I can test their performance, but I already suspect that it won’t provide the necessary temps. across the entire enclosure.
Instead of mounting it to the far side of the warm end, I was thinking of adding an Arcadia Halogen or Flood/spot bulb/CHE at the end and placing the radiant heat panel roughly 2 ft from the warm side with slightly lower heat settings (I have seen that an 80w RHP was able to create a perfect gradient alone in a 4x2x2 enclosures). Do you guys think this would be a good solution? Or should I put a halogen/flood/spot bulb/CHE (don’t necessarily need light, I will be using Arcadia LED lights to support plant growth) …? At night I assume I would run the RHP alone.
Currently I run a DHP for basking in combination with a CHE for ambient in my smaller enclosures, as the DHP doesn’t warm up my ambient enough on my warm side to create a temperature gradient.
Ambient room temperature is 20-22cm all year round.
Sorry for making this so long but I wanted to include as much information as I could.
Thank you all in advance for your help!!
