- Joined
- Aug 31, 2012
- Messages
- 11
I recently converted a dog house into a tortoise house for a pair of adolescent leopard tortoises. I sandwiched some insulation between inner and outer plywood walls. Now I'm ready to install heat, and I'm in a quandry about the best way to do it. I've got two heat sources available, an 18" x 18" ZooMed Reptitherm Habitat Heater that can be mounted on either the floor or the wall, and an 11" x 30" Helix Radiant Heat Panel that will be mounted hanging about 18" from the floor. As far as controls go, I have one Spyder Robotics Herpstat proportional thermostat.
Since the habitat heater has an automatic thermal cutoff at 119 deg F, and it registered 95 deg F when I pugged it in with no thermostat, my thought was to use this heater unregulated on one end of the house so that the tortoises could move on and off it as they chose. On the other side of the house I would have the radiant heat panel regulated with the thermostat to some minimum temp (maybe about 75 deg F). Please let me know your thoughts with respect to this setup. Is it OK to use the Habitat Heater unregulated? If so, should it be wall or floor mounted? Can I regulate both heat sources with one thermostat or would they fight each other? Any input is very much appreciated! This is my first tortoise house.
A couple notes
Since the habitat heater has an automatic thermal cutoff at 119 deg F, and it registered 95 deg F when I pugged it in with no thermostat, my thought was to use this heater unregulated on one end of the house so that the tortoises could move on and off it as they chose. On the other side of the house I would have the radiant heat panel regulated with the thermostat to some minimum temp (maybe about 75 deg F). Please let me know your thoughts with respect to this setup. Is it OK to use the Habitat Heater unregulated? If so, should it be wall or floor mounted? Can I regulate both heat sources with one thermostat or would they fight each other? Any input is very much appreciated! This is my first tortoise house.
A couple notes