Heat pad in incubator

[gekosin]

Hi All

I am going to finish off my incubator this weekend, i have read a lot about using a water heater etc but I am rather going to use a heating pad. Is it better to have the heat pad on the bottom of the polystyrene box or on the side?

Thanks

[Eyelash]

If I were you I would build a "dry" incubator.

Use the same polystyrene/cooler box and stick the heating pad on the bottom and use a reliable thermostat to control the temperature.You can add a small computer fan to help circulate the air. If you mix your incubation medium correctly you'll hatch your eggs without any issues (in closed containers). No water etc needed...

Hope it helps ?

Regards
Louis.

[kfc223]

Here are some shots of my dry incubator.

As you can see I just used a large poly box and the theremostat is ontop of it.


Here you can see the incubator set to 28c and I got the theremostat from JP Wittstock, amazing and worth it.


And here is the inside. I cut groves in for the heat cable and set two lines of it then it connects to the theremostat. There are my first eggs of the season in there. Eggs are doing very well and have no problems. You will notice I have no air holes to keep in the humidity. I open the tub every couple of days to let the eggs "breathe".


Hopefully this helped.

[gekosin]

Awesome! thanks so much for the photos! It is very similar to what I had in mind and what I made over the weekend, I have been testing the temps and so far it holds at a steady 29 so I hope this will be ok for my corn snake eggs (if i get any)

[gekosin]

Just another question about this. I have made a shelf in the incubator to raise the egg box off the heat mat a bit. Do I need to have a container with water on the heat mat or will the moist vermiculite in the egg box be sufficient to keep the humidity?

[Urucone]

I would suggest to try aiming for 27 - 28 degrees.

[Eyelash]

If your vermiculite is mixed correctly you won't need any extras like a dish of water in the incubator. I'll post some pics of my incubator tomorrow or so (it's an old fridge but the same concept).

[gekosin]

Thanks for all the feed back, i thought i would also post some pics of my handy work, as mentioned above i might remove the extra water dish, hopefully this will lower the temps as i am still battling to get it to 28 it stays at 29 even with the thermostat turned down.






Also here are some pics of the snake i think/ thought was pregnant, but after looking again im starting to doubt it, she just shed (i thought this was a pre lay shed) but she doesn't seem to be getting any larger?

[Unforgiven]

To lower the temps just use a smaller or lower watt heat mat. You could also take the foil off your heat mat and turn it into a heat cable which will make the heat less concentrated

[gekosin]

Does the temp have to be at 28? I have been reading all morning about the temps and some says it can be up to 29?

[Urucone]

It can be on 29 degrees, but it's on the barrier, if it go's up 1 degree and it stays there you can pick up problems, it's not that you will, but the possibility is there, if it's around 27 - 28 degrees you have little more to work with.

[gekosin]

Can anyone please offer some advice on how i can keep my incubator cooler? We have had some very hot days here over the last few weeks and I have been monitoring my incubator temps regularly. Unfortunately I am now back at work so cant keep as close of an eye on it, yesterday when i got home the temp was on 29.8 and im worried that the eggs are going to get damaged if it goes any higher?

[Primogen]

I recently had my incubator set to 28 or so I thought, recently got a non-contact thermometer and checked my
temps again inside the egg box and it was between 29.5 up to 30.5 and my babies hatched no problem all very healthy
and 100% hatch rate some have just taken their first feed.

So I would not worry too much unless your temps get above 31.
I cant see but it looks like your egg box does not have any holes in it try add some first but if it does
You can just poke a hole or two in the poly box that should get the temps down and you can always tape the hole up if it get to cold.