wattage?

[RELLIK81]

hey guys.
i am building a couple (3) 6x2x2 foot enclosures in a couple of months to house my olive python and to make room for more snakes in the future.....
my question is what wattage heat emitter should i use to heat this sufficiantly.....
i was gonna go with a 150 watt with a thermostat.....im just gonna use a basic thermostat for now...

any help would be great

 

[toddy1964]

if you are using bulbs.

I trialed cheap R80 bulbs till I found the right wattage, Then I bought some infra reds. Should get you close to what you need.

 

[Craig2]

you should not need anything bigger than about 75 watt you dont want to heat the whole cage just 1 spot

 

[RELLIK81]

thanx for the replies.....
its very confusin cuz ive been to reptile shops and they say to use 150w with a thermostat...but i thought it was a little high for my enclosure....
ill have to do a bit more research on it...............

 

[peterjohnson64]

if yoru thermostat fails you will kill your animals. You will get lots of people tell you that they have never had a problem woith a particular brand of thermostat. But that certainly does not mean that that brand will not fail. You MUST set up your tanks on the assumption that everything will fail and that includes room air conditioning if you live in a house that gets to 40 degrees plus on those hot Adelaide days. Remember, in a 6 foot enclosure your animal has no way of escaping the heat like it can in the wild. Personally, I think you will need different wattages depending on the season. Olives come from areas that basically get to 30 degrees every day so will willneed more heat in winter to get them up to that temp than you wil in summer where you might even actually have to cool them.

 

[TrueBlue]

150 watt !!!!!! Gezz thats a bit of an over kill.
All my olives are kept in 6ft enclosures with only 25 and 40 watt bulbs depending on the time of year. None of the enclosures have thermostats, only a division to create a warm and cold side.
As long as they can bask a few inches away from the bulb they can get as warm as they want by the lenght of time they spend basking.
As Pete has said high wattage bulbs can be very dangerous as can thermostats.

 

[RELLIK81]

what would you suggest be a decent wattage globe for my enclosure...
made out of melamine...6x2x2 in size.....
would me living in Adelaide effect the wattage......

 

[TrueBlue]

25w in the warmer months and 40w in the cooler months. As said as long as they can bask a few inches away from the bulb they can get as warm as they want by the lenght of time spend basking. A division in the tank will help to create an even better temp gradiant.