Home made incubators

[xsmithx2]

now have 16 leopard gecko geckos cooking. and all females are gravid. and two are going to drop soon.

and 4 eggs are due any day now woop!

[cdcfckb7]

very helpfuyl info

[nogatsira]

Originally Posted by VikkiGT4

right so basically all I need to do is get a poly boxs, put a heat mat in the bottom, skewers through the sides for the boxes to sit on, the egg boxes on top of that filled with either vermiculite or moss, the temp probe through so it's hanging in the middle, set temps to what I need them to, control it on a stat and then just put the lid on the poly box?

How do you set temps to what you need them to?
I've put in a heatmat from zoomed in my polybox but it's getting a bit too warm =/

[red foot marg]

you need a termostat,habistat pulse stats are the best

[nogatsira]

Originally Posted by red foot marg

you need a termostat,habistat pulse stats are the best

Ah k!
A thermostat is placed between the electricity thing in wall and the mat?

If you use a mat for lets say leopard geckos, do you need a thermostate as well then?

[carciady]

I got a polly box from my fish market, they throw them away.

[deets]

Hi all.......recently I watched yet another Herp nursery from Lucky reptile break down and destroy several clutches of leo eggs. Same old same old main element failure.....out of warranty.....not economically worth the repair with costs for parts and labour prob over cost of a new one. So I sat down and had a think! How and could I make an incubator that was accurate and easy to operate and most importantly......Cheap to make!
I did the usual trawling through the web and was left feeling a tad daunted. The parts etc most were using were quite expensive to buy and finding a suitable 'casing' body was a worry.
So I did the age old bloke thing...............blitzed through my shed for anything remotely looking like what I needed. Not very productive but I did have a good brainstorming session and found a 22 litre coolbox.
So I have a case!!!! And a scruffy memory blue print of my design.
I came up with a very simple idea of side mounted heat mats wired to a 'block' for single wires to output the other side. The blue and brown wires I had here were connected to a Drayton RTS1 room Thermostat with a fixed default range of 10 c to 30c.
I wired the room stat as follows.........
All blue (N) wires from mats and one from the mains cable lead I was going to use were bared and joined as one and placed in first block space. Next the brown wires (L) from the mats were bared and joined as one and placed into the next space.
On the block opposite the blue wires I place a single blue wire and a single brown next to it.
On the room stat backplate I placed the single blue wire into the terminal marked N. The brown wire from the mains lead was place at the next terminal marked L. Finally the single brown wire from the block was attatched at the stat backplate terminal marked 3.
I screwed the backplate into position inside the cool box and attatched its facia and dial, and the wire block underneath safe and secure. The mats are taped to the sides horizontally.
Dial set to 30c put a plug and 3amp fuse onto the mains cable, plugged it in and hey presto!!! Working like a charm and my digi temp sensor is displaying an unwaivering 30c.

I'm well happy with the result and it is proving to be way more stable and constant than the temps did in my herp nursery. They were constanly up and down in them, but this is bang on the temp I want.
It cost me the price of the room stat....£8 because the fixing plugs/screws were missing from the pack!! Everything else I had already.
My herp nurseries together cost me £238.!!!!!!! And both screwed up out of warranty (just).
So there you go..............if I can make one anyone can believe me.
If I can help anyone with more info plz get in touch I'll even have a go at drawing up some how to bits if that would help.

Oh as a footnote.........my Tremper Giant Choc/Albino Fem has just laid 2 eggs!!!!! The dad is a huge giant blazing blizzard.
Good job I made the incubator and what a relief its works so great too.
What a top day its been...lol!

[Hants-snakes]

Here is my latest incubator. The wine cooler came off ebay as a spares or repair (BIG BONUS IT WORKS) A heatmat placed behind the shelves, connected to a stat and a min max thermometer.

all in it cost about £30. it holds temp to +/- 1deg. it helps as the room has AC so holds a steady temp.

OK, so it is not pretty, it does need some work, but most importantly, it works!

[LiamRatSnake]

My incubator was extremely simple. I couldn't get hold of a poly box on short notice (I was pesemistic about the whole thing and didn't really think my corn would actually lay). So I used a wilkos plastic fish tank, wrapped it in layers of news paper and cling film, popped in a spare fish tank heater and a brick and filled with water, I tested the water temp with a thermometer and ajusted the heater accordingly. Then I got a tupaware box and stuck some holes in the lid, put some stones in the bottom, to weight it down a bit so it sunk a little, and filled with damp vermiculite, popped in the eggs and covered in a peice of kitchen roll to stop the drips falling on the eggs and floated the box in the water. Et Voila, 100% hatch after 8 weeks exactly, believe it or not lol.

[alan1]

nothing hi-tech...

3' viv... raised shelf (or 2, depending on height)... full width heat mat on floor... pulse stat...
will hold 4 or 8 royal clutches...

easy as that...