best heat conducter

[jamie_coxon]

hey

right i need 2 know whats the best heat conductor. i need to put sumthing round my light bulb to stop the lid melting on my faniruim however its spelt. its only a 15 watt night glow bulb but it gets real hot any ideas?

[amanda75]

Don't quite understand what you mean....

I'm assuming with the small size of a faunarium that your lamp is outside it? Are you using the lamp to heat the faunarium or just for viewing? If it's for heating how are you regulating the temperature? What's living in there?

For providing heat you'd probably be better off with a small heat mat (& stat) as you can't magically 'conduct' the heat through the plastic top without some of the heat transferring to the plastic in the process. You could try pointing the lamp at the clear side but will probably have the same problem. Another thing is that for bulbs the only real control option is a dimmer stat which AFAIK need at least a 40W load so you'd need to change your bulb.

[jamie_coxon]

just 4 veiwing

[Mez-sez]

hey jamie you can get stainless steel bowls that fit around your bulbs

[jamie_coxon]

a 15 watt long exo terra bllue bulb? if so im not puttin the light in the viv it just sits above the viv got a tiny heat mat ounderneath so heat is taken care ov lol

[Graham]

If you want to stop the plastic lid melting then you don't want the best heat conductor, you want the worst!

A good conductor would just make the problem worse, an insulator is what you need.