Temperature

[Barbara Gittings]

Hi All

I am picking up my G.Rosa next week, but the pet shop keep asking me if I require a heat mat. The one they have in her tank is only quite small, but I noticed the temperature in tank at the pet shop is 60? and she seems to be permanently stuck on this heat mat which is under her substrate. (60 seems a litte low to me compared to all the information I have been reading.

The room I am going to keep her in in about 70 - 75 with the heating on, its quite a warm room as the boiler is in a cupboard in there.and it gets very warm in summer. Do you think I should purchase a heat mat as well ?

I'm a bit confused but I know you will all sort me out.

Barbara

[Simon Batten]

if the room is at that heat constantly then I dont see the need for a heat mat, G.Rosea are pretty resilient when it comes to heat

[Colin D Wilson]

I agree with Simon, Rosea's are quite tolerant to temperature fluctuations in general which makes them a very hardy "first Tarantula".
If your rooms at a constant temp then there's no need for the additional heating, just keep an eye on the temp in the winter months.

[Robert Farmer]

And if you were to use a heat mat, many advocate that you situate it on one of the walls of the tank as opposed to underneath it.

Many T's will burrow to escape heat and if the mat's underneath the tank this could lead to the T overheating.

[Barbara Gittings]

Temperature

Thanks Robert I'll keep that in mind. I don't I will need it but will check temperature during night to make sure it is ok.

Many thanks to all

Barbara

[Robert Farmer]

Plus the fact your T's will grow quicker and more than likely be more active shold they be kept in a warmer environment.

[mike halewood]

Can I just hijack this thread slightly and ask, How do people heat multiple enclosures, without resorting to buying loads of heat mats??
Im having a unti built that will house all my tanks, and I was thinking of adding a heat source. Now if I use heat mats I would need 7 or 8 and @ £9 for the smallest one it could be quite expensive. I've considered using a couple of "35 by "6 heat strips and a thermostat, but that would mean sticking it to the back of the enclosures, which could cause problems when I need to remove one of the enclosures for maintainence, Any ideas??

Cheers

Mike

[Colin D Wilson]

You really only have a few options in my opinion, you could have a go at your heatstrip and thermostat idea which should work fine when set up, and is a good economical idea, but like you said it could pose a problems with maintenance.
You could heat the whole room and keep that constant.
Or run to the expence of seperate heatmats and thermos.

I had a few dimmer thermo controllers left over from my herp days so i use those with a low wattage spot lights. set the temp to whatever you need and put the whole lot on a timer so the 'T's' have a day and night (not really needed but hey, it happens in real life)
I personally don't use heat mats as i've had very bad experiences with them in the past and lost a few animals (T's & herps) to overheating when they go wrong now i'm being over cautious and use in tank low wattage heating spots as i said above. most of my t's come out and bask in the light as they could (and most likely would) do when the sun manages to get through the tree canopy in their natural habitat.

[mike halewood]

Well at the moment I dont use any extra heat, my room is pretty much 70 - 75 degrees in the day time with a bit lower at night. When it gets hotter in summer my room will go over 80 in the day.

Cheers

Mike

[Colin D Wilson]

I cant see ther being much of a problem there really. as long as it doesn't get stiffeling in the summer months for any lengthy periods of time you should be OK.

[Mike Conabeer]

Mike, another option is to use one of the soil warming cables you can buy from garden centres, these can either be run along shelves or actually around the back or even sides of the main unit, this is how I heat my shelf units, althought my room also stays around 70F due to all the vivs in there!

Mike.

[mike halewood]

Cheers Mike, so that way you're heating the shelves rather than the tanks??

Mike

[Mike Conabeer]

Pretty much Mike, but depending on whether your unit is enclosed, where you'll create an ambient temperature within it, or open like mine which gets a lot of heat from the room and a bit of a boost from the cable, the heating will have differing effects as described.

Mike.

[Robert Farmer]

What you could do is attach the heat strip to your wall and then situate your viv's at a distance which provides the adequate heat, thermometer will no doubt be handy lol

Also means if you have to move one of the tanks there is no need to detach the heatstrip.

[mike halewood]

Would that supply enough heat? Im having a shelf unit built by my brother who used the be a joiner I could put the heatstrip on the back of the unit?

TBH I wont be doing anything at the moment because even today with extra heat sources my room is in the high 70's with the central heating on. Then again it would be good to have for those cold nights.

Cheers

Mike