Hi everyone, I’m new to the forum. I have 2 Ball Pythons. I’m wondering what is your favorite under tank heater? I currently have a few along with thermostats, but I feel they barely warm the substrate. Any tips and brands, including size at wattage recommendations are appreciated! Best, Kelly
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Heat mats don’t warm up the substrate much. They are designed to heat up the surface they are touching. And that applies to pretty much every heat mat. I personally only use them in temporary situations though so I am not the best person to say if there is a way to change that other than by having a thinner substrate layer.
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As @logar said, heat mats don’t really do much to warm substrate or increase overall ambient temperatures (they will a little, but nothing dramatic). For this reason, I often like to pair heat mats with some sort of overhead heat source, like a ceramic heat emitter, deep heat projector, or radiant heat panel. Those overhead heat sources will do more to warm the top of the substrate and increase the ambient air temperature in the enclosure.
The ambient temperature in your home/reptile room is a big deciding factor in determining the best way to heat your enclosures, and I feel this isn’t talked about nearly enough in most care guides. If the room where you keep your reptile(s) is warm (75F or above), then you’ll probably be fine with just a heat mat on the warm end to provide a toasty spot for them to warm up. But if you keep your reptiles in a cooler room, a heat mat probably isn’t going to be enough on its own. I don’t have a dedicated “reptile room,” and I don’t do well in the heat and keep my home cool, so I need to use overhead heating to keep my snake enclosures at proper temperatures.
Welcome to the forum, by the way!
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For wood cages, I like the Kane heat mat.
I mount them under the cage, not inside the cage.
For glass, plastic type cages, and rack system cages, I use Reptile Basics flex watt.
With all under mounted heat mats, you should always have an air gap. This help keep them from burning out / over heating.
Plastic type cages should have some type of buffer between the plastic and heat tape. A thermostat should be used to control the temperature.
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We might be able to recommend things if we know more about how the enclosures are set up.
The main concern is basically don’t try to match your substrate to the temp you want…because that can make the bottom of the enclosure a burn hazard. My BPs like to shift and move substrate to get to the right temps that they want. And the bottom is typically between 88-89.
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