Does anyone know where to get a radiant heat panel in Australia?

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Up to you , but personaly , i would never risk the health and welbeing of any of my pets for the sake of asthetics.
Definitely, I wouldn't put the snake in if it didn't maintain ideal peramiters, hence the month or more test. If it doesn't hold up to scratch then I'll be completely swapping out for artifical until I get it all working. I've also chosen it for enrichment for my snake, it's also cleaner with the waste they drop because of the clean up crew that lives in the substrate.
 
How would dirt be cleaner than paper ? The thing i like about paper is, it is easier to see when it needs cleaning , its much easier and cheaper to replace and its sterile.
 
How would dirt be cleaner than paper ? The thing i like about paper is, it is easier to see when it needs cleaning , its much easier and cheaper to replace and its sterile.
I wouldn't say cleaner, but it's a different way to approach a snake enclosure. With the bioactive enclosure you have isopods and springtails, some people have worms or beetles in there but it varies on who you ask. They eat the waste and break it down, effectively cleaning it. However they don't eat urates so you have to remove them. I'd be keeping the snake in a quarentine tub before they'd be going in, plus since they're a hatchling. This will have paper and all easily steralisable items. It's not for everyone, I definitely see why people use paper etc. And there's nothing wrong with that, this is just a different way to approach it.
 
You asked some questions , i gave the best answers i can , if you are going ignore the advice and set up a bioactive enclosure anyway ,then why ask in the first place ?

All you can do is offer advice to the best of your ability, which is exactly what you (and many others) have done here. OP can then choose to follow or ignore said advice. The problem (moreso for OP) is though, if said advice is ignored and things don't go quite as planned and OP comes back looking for more help, well people won't be as quick to come forward with advice the second time round. #ForumLife
 
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I think you should go for a naturalistic looking enclosure with dry low water drinking plants (fake plants still would be better) vs a bioactive one that requires lots of fine details
 
Seems to me that having an astheticly pleasing setup is more important to W. J. than the actual animals health. If she is truly interested in snakes, and is willing to put in the time and effort then she should get one. But if she just wants a trendy decoration for an arborium , then maybe a realistic rubber snake would do.
 
Spotted Pythons occur naturally in open forest, woodland and rocky areas. These habitats lack the moist understorey of closed forests and rainforest. So the recommended humidity level for spotteds is usually quoted at around 50% to 60%. They can probably be kept at up to 70% so as long as there is adequate airflow to prevent pockets of stale moist warm air forming.

In a planted terrarium enclosure, the humidity can easily exceed 80%. The type of plants, their size and leaf area, and the temperature at which they are grown, will all influence humidity. Things like ferns and mosses require a continuously moist substrate in order to survive. To provide for the needs of isopods, springtails and other clean-up invertebrates, a layer of moist leaf litter over moist substrate is required. A heavily planted enclosure will also reduce free air flow due to the plant leaves and fronds.

The simple reality is that a lush planting with a bio-active setup is not going to be suitable for a ground dwelling python occurring naturally in drier, open habitats. Exposing the snake to such high humidity will sooner or later result in health issues, such as scale rot, fungal dermatosis or similar. If you really want both, then consider having two enclosures – a drier one for the spotted, and the other with a humidity tolerant snake such as a Keelback Tropidonophis mairii. You might also like consider the Chameleon gecko Carphodactylus laevis, or a Leaf-tailed Gecko species, or perhaps even some small to medium tree frogs.
 
Spotted Pythons occur naturally in open forest, woodland and rocky areas. These habitats lack the moist understorey of closed forests and rainforest. So the recommended humidity level for spotteds is usually quoted at around 50% to 60%. They can probably be kept at up to 70% so as long as there is adequate airflow to prevent pockets of stale moist warm air forming.

In a planted terrarium enclosure, the humidity can easily exceed 80%. The type of plants, their size and leaf area, and the temperature at which they are grown, will all influence humidity. Things like ferns and mosses require a continuously moist substrate in order to survive. To provide for the needs of isopods, springtails and other clean-up invertebrates, a layer of moist leaf litter over moist substrate is required. A heavily planted enclosure will also reduce free air flow due to the plant leaves and fronds.

The simple reality is that a lush planting with a bio-active setup is not going to be suitable for a ground dwelling python occurring naturally in drier, open habitats. Exposing the snake to such high humidity will sooner or later result in health issues, such as scale rot, fungal dermatosis or similar. If you really want both, then consider having two enclosures – a drier one for the spotted, and the other with a humidity tolerant snake such as a Keelback Tropidonophis mairii. You might also like consider the Chameleon gecko Carphodactylus laevis, or a Leaf-tailed Gecko species, or perhaps even some small to medium tree frogs.

Thank you very much for your detailed response!

I didn't realise the top leaf litter had to be moist and the plants increased humidity in and of itself, but that's okay! Fake plants are all around!

I reckon I'll do exactly what I wanted to do with real plants, but with fake ones, eliminating humidity issues. I've done a lot of research on vivariums, I might actually just start up a little bioactive plant terrarium, without any animals as well, that'd be nice, or frogs as you said!

Thank you again!
 
Hey Bluetongue1 how far apart do you run the heat cord? I routed one 5 cm apart and it doesn't seem to get hot enough. I have a 10 mm stone tile over it and gets to max high 20s. Cheers

Sorry, I missed this post. I am really glad you brought it up though.

After my posting of the details I realised that something had to be wrong. It was about 10 years ago now that we tested the tile. Reckon I might have incorrectly remembered the tile dimensions. On the basis of a 1.5 m heating element (15W heat cord) the loops would have to spaced been spaced at 6 mm intervals under a 30 cm square tile to keep them evenly spread. However, what I recall seeding was much closer than that - like about half that. So I reckon it was probably a 20 cm square tile. That would make the spacing about 2.5 cm between loops, which is much more like I recall.
 
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Seems to me that having an astheticly pleasing setup is more important to W. J. than the actual animals health. If she is truly interested in snakes, and is willing to put in the time and effort then she should get one. But if she just wants a trendy decoration for an arborium , then maybe a realistic rubber snake would do.

I definitely don't want one for a decoration, I'm truly interested in them as creatures and want to learn more about them. On top of that, I want to provide them with a lovely home to live in. I wanted to go bioactive because I had read it's great for the snakes, highly enriching and stimulates natural behaviours. Although I did mention the worry about high humidity, I kept researching and read plenty of examples of snakes with similar humidity requirements (e.g kingsnakes, ball python) that have been kept extremely well in bioactive enclosures.
But if it won't suit my snake, then I won't go with it.
Bluetongue did a wonderful job of breaking it down and I've opted to avoid doing it, it'd be too humid if I did and I want my snake to be happy.
 
I've been wanting to set up some heat panel's myself, but can't really get them anymore, thinking of trying the set up in this video
I have jungle pythons, so while belly heat it good, they also like to climb.
There are also the Zoomed Habistat heaters, which I'm keen to try, which are designed to be used outside in the elements, but can work great inside too.
 
I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but if they have my apologies for the oversight.
I have always used homemade RHPs. They are cheap and reliable - just need a bit of experimentation to get them just right.
I use coreflute (pretty sure it's 10mm) and thread a 50w heat cord up and down the compartments. I tend to thread one and miss two before the next channel, but that's where the experimentation comes in. Then I just screw the coreflute square (or rectangle, depending on my cage dimensions) to the top of the enclosure.
Surface temps can exceed 50C, so I never place them where the snake can rest on or against them. The real test is the temp of the basking snake below. Adjusting the height of the basking perch is all that is then required.
I have had some of these operating for 15 years without a problem. No smell or burning, cheap, reliable, and easily adjusted.
 
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