whats the most popular ceramic bulb size?

[dkir7979]

comment your ceramic heater bulb size

Hi,
What ceramic heat emitter size bulb does everyone use the most? ie. 60W, 100W, 150W, 250W??
and for what animal? (im doing product research)
cheers

 

[pinefamily]

Not so much for what animal (although some may need varying amounts of heat), but it depends on the size and type of the enclosure. We run 100w CHE's in all of our snake enclosures, except for one of our coastal juveniles, who is in a smaller tank with a 60w.

 

[JAS101]

I use 4 , 75w ceramics in a staggered line for the crocs heat on his land area . and 2 , 75w in a line for the black headed monitor enclosure .

 

[pinefamily]

Do you use CHE's for your monitor(s) JAS101? How do they go with them? And do you achieve the required temp at their basking spot?
Not having a go, just curious.

 

[hoppy]

Never use ceramic they have a bad reputation of overheating and burning snakes

 

[pinefamily]

Never use ceramic they have a bad reputation of overheating and burning snakes

Don't want to start an argument or debate about this, but where have you seen this? I would have thought this would be true of globes rather than CHE's, as globes concentrate heat, whereas CHE's heat in a more ambient manner.

 

[JAS101]

Do you use CHE's for your monitor(s) JAS101? How do they go with them? And do you achieve the required temp at their basking spot?
Not having a go, just curious.

yeah my black head monitor [ pencil] has CHE`s in her enclosure , I have set it up so 1 emitter is close to a basking site and the other is further away from another basking site . so she can choose at any time what she wants to bask under .

- - - Updated - - -

Never use ceramic they have a bad reputation of overheating and burning snakes

any heat source can over heat and burn snakes or reptiles in general , this is why its advised that all globes/bulbs / heat emitters are caged for this very reason .

 

[pinefamily]

And use a thermostat or timer with them.

 

[MrVic]

Cage size should be the determining factor. I have a 6x4x2 converted fish tank that has undergone some major renovation to insulate it.
I assumed that 2x60's running on a thermostat would do the trick but all I managed was to get the ambient temperature to around 28-30c.

That meant that the 60's were running at full power to get to temp. I swapped one 60 for a 200w CHE and now the temperature in Casa Del Bob gets to 32c quickly and the dimming thermostat is keeping the temperature steady in one spot.
I've switched the second CHE off and now I have a 10c gradient across the 6ft during the day.
At night his basking spot is set to 24c and the cold end is 20c.

Now the best bit is the 200 isn't being flogged at full power all of the time.

Surprise surprise, someone is now happy moving around self regulating their body temp. He seems to be a much happier Bob

 

[wokka]

All these big wattages frighten me in terms of the energy they consume. A 200 watt CHE burns 2800 watts in 24 hours use. Rows of 100watts? Well it depends upon how long the row is but it does seem a decident hobby in terms of energy! Does anyone turn to insulation rather than just upping the wattage?

 

[pinefamily]

That's why we only use the 100w CHE's, regardless of the enclosure. A couple of our pythons are in glass tanks, and we've insulated with polystyrene backing and sides, and expanda foam backgrounds. One glass tank we bought off Gumtree had a mesh top, so we covered most of the mesh with silver heat tape, as well as the above. The 100w's get the required temps in the melamine enclosures no problem.

 

[Striker]

Heat cord for the energy efficient. Can get a 35 degree basking spot of a 15 watt heat cord. Not much good if you want ambient heat though.

 

[coastals]

The most energy efficient way of heating is to keep local species that can be housed in large outdoor enclosures.

 

[wokka]

I use 100 of 13 watt matts in 100 1200 long melomine cages which gives me 32-34 on the tile, but its in an insulated room where the ambient only falls to about 15 at night with no matts on the builds to about 20C in the day. Still 16 KW of power but thats for 100 cages. - Yeah we are going off topic.

 

[MrVic]

I'm no electrician but the way I see it, the fact that I am running a 200w CHE does not mean it's consuming 200w/h.
The CHE has the ability to get to temp quickly and then the dimming thermostat that I use means that it dims the amount of power needed to keep the CHE running to achieve the desired temperature.
The 2x 60's that I was using wasn't achieving the desired temperature therefore it was consuming 120w/h and was falling short.

I posted on here a frame that I built that is insulated bottom and back and have used vinyl self adhesive tiles which also improved with insulation.

Not saying that a 100w isn't sufficient, as I mentioned earlier, it is dependant on the size and construction of your enclosure.