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Heater Mat

dunnm

Seedling
Joined
22 Aug 2012
Messages
3
Hi,
Thinking of starting a new emmersed set up but worried my house will be too cold at night. Google searches just come up with reptile heater mats which I guess is what I want (?) anybody recommend brand/type I should be buying?
Cheers
 
Heater mats used to be quite the thing for heating Aquariums - the theory being that the convection helped water flow through the substrate !! Big problem was that when they failed you either stripped everything down and replaced or reverted back to a traditional heater stat !


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Make sure the reptile mat is a decent quality and waterproof one. Check on waterproof!
My mate owns a Local pet shop, and has water dragons. He was spraying them with water (which they love!) and left them. He came back to the habitat smoking like hell, filling the room with smoke too, and lost one of the dragons. Could have been a lot worse as there were about 5-6.

He was told by the rep they were the right ones for inside wet habitats, but they weren't.

Obviously if your gonna run a tank on it, then it may get wet lol.
 
I have never had a tank crack, these type of mats are very low wattage & only produce a gentle warmth, they work extremely well at producing a high humidity environment inside an emmersed tank set up.
However some mats have a relatively short life of only a few years & are not really designed to be used under a filled tank but I have also used them like this with an additional polystyrene tile.
Even a really small mat will raise the humidity but try to get one a similar size to the tank & you should get about 75-80f in the substrate, if that is warmer than the surrounding room temp the tanks humidity will soar up & even produces artificial rain as drops of water fall from the sealed lid.
From my experience the very best results for a dry start tank come from using a low wattage reptile heat mat placed under the tank, bright light for 12-14 hours a day & a sealed top.
 
I used to use a fogger in mine - Worked well, except the salts in the nutrient solution meant the transducer only lasted a month or so.
I think the heater mat is a good idea, warm roots are happy roots and you don't have the water to do that like in a tank.

1242828397.jpg
 
I used to use a fogger in mine - Worked well, except the salts in the nutrient solution meant the transducer only lasted a month or so.
I think the heater mat is a good idea, warm roots are happy roots and you don't have the water to do that like in a tank.

1242828397.jpg


Hello FA,

I intend mine to be used with RO water, as the nutrients will come from A substrate and possibly a mist with a sprayer with very weak dose of fertilisers in.

Thanks for the reply,
N
 
I know we love our hobby & doing things that are not really necessary, is just part of the hobby but, I must say that you can get 3-4 times the growth rate from a sealed heat mat set up with absolutely no spraying of misting or anything else apart from light & ferts in the substrate, that is compared to a tank filled with water!
I have several misters I might well try one out just for the fun of it...
 
I know we love our hobby & doing things that are not really necessary, is just part of the hobby but, I must say that you can get 3-4 times the growth rate from a sealed heat mat set up with absolutely no spraying of misting or anything else apart from light & ferts in the substrate, that is compared to a tank filled with water!
I have several misters I might well try one out just for the fun of it...

Yeah mate, definitely with you on that.
The only thing I would really like to mist would be the branches of manzanita with moss attached. More just to see how prolific the growth would be. Yet totally unnecessary I know. :)

My tanks a 90x45x45, do they do decent sized mats? Or am I more likely to need two? And my tank is so bloody heavy, without substrate, that the thought of lifting it with substrate, to remove a heat mat makes my eyes water
 
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