best head mats ?

[mark pettican]

ive got 2 tarantulas , a subadult B. smithi and a juvenile L. parahybana . until recently the ambiuent room temperature has been fine for them . but now the temp is dropping im having problems , as i dont have any heating on during the day when im at work and the T's are getting too cold. ive got an exo terra heat mat that came with the B. smithi that i got from somebody , so i tried that , and its useless . doesnt even feel warm and today when i got home both T's thermometers were reading 18 degrees C . this is obvoiusly only going to get worse as winter sets in so i need something reliable for each terrarium to keep their temp up in the ideal range . what would you reccomend i bought ? smithi terrarium is glass , parahybana is plastic

[vincent winyard]

hi mark welcome to the forum. first if you need to use heat mats try putting some sheet polystyrene behind them you only need it half an inch to an inch thick this will really help throw the heat in to the tank. by the way never put a heat pad on the bottom of the tank only the side or back you probably already know this though. the other option is an oil filled radiator with a built in thermostat so you can set the desired temperature that way you only have to heat one room and not the whole house hope this helps.

[mark pettican]

thanks , but i already have the heat mat on the back with polystyrene behind it and its doing nothing . it actually feels still cold to touch . like its not generating any heat . i was looking to replace it and at the same time get 1 for the parahybana . i was just wanting to know what is a decent make that will actually give the heat required

[Paul Norris]

Hi, my understanding is that with heat mats they actually throw out some sort of long wave radiation that warms what it hits, rather than warming the air. I may be wrong though, so someone may correct me on this.

[mark pettican]

im sure i remember years ago when i had tarantulas that the heat mats actually felt warm to the touch ?

[vincent winyard]

mark they should feel warm to the touch. if there's no heat coming from it what so ever it must be a dodgy heat mat. it might be a good idea to invest in a new one. perhaps the mat didn't work in the first place.

[mark pettican]

can you reccomend a good reliable make please ?

[vincent winyard]

sorry mark just got in from work. i use habistat and komodo heat pads both work really well and are easy to get hold of.

[mark pettican]

thanks vincent

[vincent winyard]

your welcome

[John-Henry Dickinson]

Hi, I used to use heat mats when I had my first two T's. But if your considering expanding your collection then it might be worth buying or building a display cabinet/racking to put them in and using a heat cable to heat the cabinet using a thermostat to control the temp. This is a system I use which I find very effective and cheap. Alternatively using an oil heater to heat the room is also a good option.

Hope this helps.

[Michael Trueman]

Hi, I used to use heat mats when I had my first two T's. But if your considering expanding your collection then it might be worth buying or building a display cabinet/racking to put them in and using a heat cable to heat the cabinet using a thermostat to control the temp. This is a system I use which I find very effective and cheap. Alternatively using an oil heater to heat the room is also a good option.

Hope this helps.

My friend who has 100+ Ts does exactly this and it works out well for him.

I myself use an oil heater as my collection is smaller. You can pick up a cheap one (with built in thermostat) from Tesco.