Hey guys! I apologize if this is a common question, but when I ran a search I didn’t come across results that matched what I need.
I’m wondering if any of you guys have any material or product suggestions. I’m moving my sand boa, who is in a 20g long onto my new desk, right in the corner of my room, but the problem is that at the closest point, the end of his tank will be about 3 feet away from my window.
I live in Washington state near Seattle, so we don’t get crazy weather, but I do like to have the window cracked a little at night while I sleep. Due to the angle of the sun, he wouldn’t be in the way of any sunlight, but my blackout curtains are almost always closed anyway. So trapping heat in his enclosure at night and during the colder months is my only concern with that location.
I cover all my tanks partially with fleece blankets to insulate and to provide cover on 3 sides. They’re arranged to leave room for ventilation. I’ll be covering the back and sides with aquarium backing, once I have a space to lay it out and cut it but. Yeah. Anyway.
I’m looking for like a heat reflecting or insulating pad on amazon that I can put against the outside of his tank to hopefully trap the heat inside, if that does become a problem. Nothing that creates heat, just something to insulate. There’s so many options and types that I don’t know what will actually work the best, but I figured at least one person on here would. (I’m running a 100 watt ceramic heat emitter on a thermostat set to 86F on one end of the tank, if that makes a difference to anyone, and I’ll likely put it on the side farthest from the window.)
And his health/happiness are my priority. He is my love. If it’s really not working out, I’ll move him somewhere else.
Just the overhead right now. I’m super nervous to use an under tank heater, I’ve just heard so many scary things about them. But the snakes are often warm to the touch when I take them out of their “warm side” hides.
Honestly I’d be extra careful if using over tank heating and having fleece blankets on the top, sounds like a fire hazard if the blanket gets nudged somehow.
Believe me I know, my single brain celled self once put a heat lamp down on the floor to adjust some things in the enclosure, and melted the carpet! These things can happen really fast, not to mention sometimes the fabric getting melted could harm the animal either via contact or smoke/fumes
Lol! @cmills I did the EXACT SAME THING! I set the dome on the carpet with the light still on and it melted a nice round circle. I hid it from my husband until we sold the house. Then I had to “fess up!” Lol
To be fair, I’m now remembering why I left it on the floor, and it was because after taking the hermit crab tank outside to swap the substrate and let the crabs play supervised, we only counted 3 out of 4 crabs!!
So I left the light on the floor to search outside in panic, absolutely convinced she was lost forever.
She was hanging upside down on some tank decorations perfectly safe! Then I had a hole in the carpet and an ULCER
Hahaha, oh no. Yeah, I melted part of the trim on my turtle’s 55g probably about 20 years ago.
I have a couple cinder blocks and tiles that I place the fixtures on, or I place them on someone else’s enclosure if I’m just going in to change water or something quick. They’re all labeled clearly, so no mix-ups.
There’s ample space between the blankets and the fixtures, and I place glass decor on the blankets to pin them down. Everybody lives in my bedroom, and nobody else goes in there so. I’m very comfortable and familiar with the overhead heat.
I don’t intend to change my heating setup, as it’s worked for me for over 10 years, and if it ain’t broke…. But I appreciate the concern, in making sure my kids are safe.
Seconding the heat tape, another “quick fix” I’ve done is literally just styrofoam boards wedged on the sides of the cage, seems to help a bit. I think I take the cake on dumb heat lamp stories, I set one on a GLASS LID TANK, effectively lost a heat lamp from the fall and a glass tank, along with shooting glass shards and scaring myself half to death
Oh my god that sounds terrifying! Thanks for the great idea though!! My plan is to get some aquarium backing and putting the insulating tape over top of that but I’ll definitely keep the styrofoam in mind. <3
(I’m running a 100 watt ceramic heat emitter on a thermostat set to 86F on one end of the tank, if that makes a difference to anyone, and I’ll likely put it on the side farthest from the window.)
