Enclosures Overheating

Hello all,

So I recently invested a decent chunk of cash into nine 4x2x2 PVC enclosures for my dragons from reptilekages.com. Each has two vents on the sides and back, and there are two light fixtures in each enclosure (one over the center for UVB, and another on the side for basking). I have three stacks of three enclosures.

I've run into a problem though. The basking bulbs are overheating the entire enclosure to the point where the "cool" side is 90-95 degrees. I've gone down to as low as 50 watts, and even that's too much (plus there's almost no real basking rays coming off it). I'm spending my days closely monitoring the enclosures and turning off the basking bulbs periodically so the cage can cool down. This obviously isn't sustainable. I tried a cheap thermostat and put it on the lowest setting, and things were still too hot.

Anyone have any recommendations for either a better thermostat or a way to reduce ambient heat in the enclosure while maintaining concentrated heat in a basking spot? I've emailed the company a couple times asking for advice and, disappointingly, I've yet to receive a response.

Ok gonna jump in here --- not sure but it sounds like you need to add more ventilation or unstack them --- I would unstack them first and see if that does not remedy problem --- I will flag your post to someone who might be able to help-- thats just a idea
Karrie

It sounds like over insulation and not enough airflow since adjusting the basking lamps still hasn't helped. I usually recommend having vents low on the cool side and high on the warm side to help draw air up through the enclosure naturally via convection. If you don't have them in this configuration, or if you aren't able to add vents in that configuration, you might consider using fans.

Computer case fans are a cheap and low power way to pull warm air out of the enclosure. You don't want to create much wind, but move enough air to counter the insulating effect of the enclosure walls. You could even set one up on an on/off thermostat to kick on within a certain temp range.

You can try better air flow. If the room your tanks are in is already warm because of the tanks, it might not help much though.

What type of basking bulb are you using? You might need to change to more of a beam type of bulb as opposed to one that just generally heats up and doesn't concentrate the heat directionally.

I have the same issues in my 4x2x2s. I'm using 40w bulbs.

-Brandon

Hi there I had this issue a bit too; i live in Australia and summer here does get very hot- I can't monitor temps at home when im working so i was struggling a bit

I ended up (just for summer) swapping my halogen for arcadias deep heat projector 50w and hooking it up to a thermostat. It gives a powerful beam of strong heat but will shut off one the enclosure on the warm side hits a certain ambient temp so my beardie doesnt cook in there; it gives off no light so it doesnt mess with her visually

You will still need a bright white light for visual effect though, i have 3 fixtures inside so i put the heat projector up with a bright warm LED next to it (since it doesn't let off heat) and the reptisun tube for uvb

It's not a perfect fix but it has stopped the overheating at least - the DHE actually isnt the same as CHE as it really does shoot down a ray of heat right below it rather than radiating heat so i def recommend it over CHE; having used the DHE and Halogen for bask id even argue personally that the DHE does the job better when it comes to heat rays because it was purposefully designed for this