Hiya,

I have a little dilemma.

At the moment I have 2 leos in a viv which is 18 inches deep, 18 inches tall and 2 foot wide. They have a 600W pulse proportional habistat running a ceramic heat lamp and seem very happy with this.

I want to breed leos so I have bought this -

WOODEN VIVARIUM STACK - eBay Reptiles, Pet Supplies, Home Garden (end time 24-Sep-07 19:41:52 BST)

I had anticipated that I would be able to install ceramic lamps in all 3 vivs and run them all from the one stat that I already have (and obviously I would have to move the 2 leos into the stack, not leave them in the single viv with no stat!)

But now I have collected it, I realised just how tall a 2 foot viv is - a bit un-neccessary for leos! The guy who sold it to me owned a shop and he suggested that I turn the 3 vivs into 6 by splitting each viv in half horizontally so they would be 2 foot deep, 2 foot wide but only 1 foot tall each. Hope that makes sense.

So how is the best way to heat this?

If the vivs are only a foot tall, ceramic lamps are possibly going to be too dangerous to use as I don't want the leos to touch them and burn themselves so I was looking at heat mats but that means buying 6 mats and 6 stats.

This website suggests that mats don't need stats - Reptile Heating. How to choose reptile heating. - surely thats not right??

Would I get away with having 6 ceramic heat lamps (one in each viv), 3 stats (one per 2 vivs) and then just put covers over the lamps?

I would recomend a control on any heating equipment. I know those who dont, and I know those who have burnt pets !

As for heating, you could use 6 mats protected on one stat, but that reall only semi protects.

I would suggest a Heat cable, you can get them from live foods direct.

Its one heating element, on one controller so better, probe should go in one of the top vivs.

Fix the cable to the roof of the viv, in order to heat the floor of the one above.

Thats how we heat our stacks, we have a 12 viv stack and two 9 viv stacks, all heated by cable and one controler each.

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Hiya,

I have looked on live foods direct and I can't see heat cable.

Wouldn't I still need 6 heat cables though for a 6 stack?

What sort of controller? Would my stat be ok?

there's a heat cable for sale in the classifieds or equipment section here.

As its only 1 cable you'd just need 1 mat stat although if you wanted to stick with ceramic bulbs i think you'd only need 3 of them as the heat from the viv below would probably heat the viv above.
If you used individual mats in each viv you could use a dual stat. A stat with 2 seperate outputs on it so only 3 in total.
If you really wanted you could connect all the mats to 1 extension going into 1 stat and control the heat from 1 of the vivs. All the vivs would need to be set out almost identical to ensure heat was the same on each layer.

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Oh its all so confusing!!

Whats the easiest and preferably cheapest method?

Cable, mats or ceramic bulbs?

Are ceramic bulbs safe in a 1ft tall viv?

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