Heating Mat Temp Help

[Russellti]

Hello,
I've got a couple of 6" Red Foots in an outside enclosure in Tampa Bay Florida. Built a heat box for them with a Stanfield heat pad. Temps are down near the 50s at night. Does anyone have a recommendation on how warm to set the heating mat? I currently have it set to 5 using the Stanfield mat control. Thanks!

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Russell, and welcome to the Forum!!

It all depends upon what the temperature is where the controller is located. For instance, I start mine out in early winter set at 4. As the weather gets colder, I have to set it up to 5, then 6. I hardly ever go over 6. But every night I go out to each pad and place my hand on it (real scientific, I know). If you have a point and shoot temperature guage (or whatever the heck they're called), you can just point it at the pad. You want it to be around 80F degrees.

For my Burmese tortoises, who like a cooler habitat, I have the pads mounted on the walls. The wall mount didn't work out for the leopard tortoises, so theirs is laying on the floor. The wall mounted pads seem to warm up the shed quite well without creating a hot spot for the cooler loving tortoises to sit on. While the floor mount is treasured by the desert-species of tortoise. They love sitting on the warm pad.

I really don't think there's a hard, fast rule about the temp of your pig blanket. You just want it to be warm enough to keep your tortoise comfortable.

 

[Len B]

Hey Russel, I'm not sure I can explain this, or completly understand why, but I will try. The Stanfield pads work with different efficenties depending on the type of surface it is mounted on. It takes more watts to reach a certain temp on concrete than it takes to reach that same temp when mounted on wood, and even less wattage is needed to reach that same temp when mounted on an insulated surface,I have found that if I mount them on wood with insulation under the wood I can lower the cost of using them and maintain a constant tempature eaisly with using a dimmer switch or the Stanfield regulator. Basicly a 4 setting on concrete will not be the same as a 4 on wood or some other type of surface.

 

[Russellti]

Thanks for the advice. Very helpful. Obviously, I'll have to play around with the temp/location of the mats since I just checked outside and one tortoise was in the heat box but away from the mat and the other one was outside the box looking pretty cold. I ended up bringing them in for the night until I get things figured out. Thanks again.

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

I've got a question in a few minutes…

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

When setting up my stanfield heat mat, I plan on using a zoo med temp controller. In that scenario, whee would I put the probe?

 

[Millerlite]

I would go out and get a thermostat. With temps changing every night I would say it's a good investment, set it at 80 turn the mat on and it will turn off when it hits that temp. I'm not sure where I would put the thermostat, I don't know how they work, I made a heat box using ceramic heaters so I put them In there and it worked fine

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

This will be going into a heated tort house kept warm with a radiator type heater keeping ambient temps of 80f. Just not sure if I should use 2 controllers, 1 for pad, 1 for heater, or use 1 to control both. And the the ultimate question would be where to have the temp. probe.