best way to heat..

[phoenixxx]

I have a 2ft x 1ft x 1ft viv coming for my hognose, and I'd be grateful for your opinions on the best equipment for heating. My baby Royal lives in a faunarium under which I have a heat mat, and there's a microclimate ministat in there to monitor temp. I was thinking something similar for the hognose setup, but I'm confused as to
a) what size heatmat is best
b) what wattage of thermostat to get (the microclimate ones come as 300W and 100W, and its a long long time since I did physics)
c) which brands of equipment are good and whether they work well together if you mix brands of heatmat and stat.

As you can probably tell I'm pretty new to this! Also, its kinda late and I've looked at way too many online shops and confuzzled myself..

Any input much appreciated
phoenixxx

[oakelm]

You need a heatmat that will cover a third of the of the tank so in a 2 foot by 1 foot tank so that 12" by 8" or as close as you can get. That size heatmat will only be around 10 - 20 watts so any stat out there will cope with that. As for mixing brands I have never had an issue. I have all sorts of stuff that I have collected over the years and it works fine together. I dont have a preference on heat mats or stats personally. Dont forget for your list a digital thermometer as stats no matter how good or new are not super accurate because it depends on the temp of your house. So go by the thermometer not the dial on the stat to set it up.

[phoenixxx]

Thank you, that was nicely complete and concise and exactly what I needed