- Joined
- Sep 19, 2013
- Messages
- 148
The last one is a birds eye view!!
You're in your thread, now
Can't wait to see what you've done
Sure..can you tag @Tom in as I think he will vibe!!! Ha
Cool!
Cheers Tom, what would you recommend I use for heating? This is more of a winter box as oppose to night box. Cheers
Tell me the dimensions again? And where in the country are you?
At 12'x 3' I'd use the oil filled radiator. I mean, that is what I use and Tom uses them in the 4' x 8' box.
It's is 12foot by 3 foot and 2 foot tall, (all insulated) I am in the UK. Nottingham.
Well, I do use the mini radiant oil heaters in my 4x8x2' boxes, so I think that would work for you too. However your climate is constantly colder than mine. We don't get snow here and even cold winter days get up to 12-13C. Our warmer winter days get up to 26-27C with occasional spikes of 32C in January and February. Night temps do occasionally drop below 0C during winter, but the warmer days allow the tortoises to sun themselves to warm up. My area has huge temperature swings from day to night.
You will need to run it for a while to see, and have a back up plan at the ready.
I don't know your climate but from what I understand you have A LOT of cold clammy overcast days. In this case I think using lighting inside your large heated box during the day actually might be a good thing. I have no experience with a climate like that, so this is all speculation. I would love for you to try it all out and then teach me what works in your area for this species.
After checking on temperatures for most of the day, I have decided to use my che heaters and it seems to heat it up much quicker and also sustain the correct temp, I was struggling to get above 11 degrees C using just the oil heater, now with the che I am up to a steady 26 (it is currently 10pm and circa -1 degrees C outside, my box being in the garage-it seems to be doing well, I have also put 2x 36" UV tubes in there which also are looking pretty sweet. I plan on monitoring the temps through the night, work tomorrow should be fun! (I'm a teacher) ha!!
There is simply no substitute for running a new enclosures and checking all the parameters. Advice from a forum across the pond in nice, but hands on testing is always going to be your number one source of good info in your own enclosure.
Please keep updating us. I like to learn from the experience of others and your situation is new to me. Thanks for sharing with us.