Currently, I have my thermostat working on two separate tanks (Same size, both Leopard Geckos). I am using ceramic heat emitters, but I want to use a UTH at the same time. So that is 4 heat sources, but the thermostat only has three plugs. I it safe to plug in a rheostat into the thermostat to add more outlets? I want to use the heat emitters as the primary heat source and have the UTHs on low wattage for belly heat. Is this good, or am I over thinking it?
You can never over-think when it comes to your reptiles. As long as you do NOT exceed the wattage ratting of the thermostat you will be okay. My thermostat is rated at 1500 watts so what i do is add up the total wattage of all my emitters,lights,and UTH's and add 200watts to that number as a buffer to make sure you are well under the maximum wattage your thermostat can handle. Note: It is not recommended to use a single thermostat for 2 or more enclosures unless it is set up for 2 or more or shares the same airflow. I have 2 set up on one thermostat but they are compartments within the same enclosure and have airflow thru both. Remember, One temp prob can't tell what the other compartments temp is, so if one side is drafty it will turn on making for an overheated reptile on the other side.
Thank you. I will probably get another thermostat when I save up then, since the cage without the probe gets 6-7 degrees warmer than the other. Just curious---what kind of enclosure do you have? If it is less expensive than getting another thermostat, I was thinking I might just build a two compartment enclosure instead of having two seprate ones.
The 2 compartment enclosure I built can be seen here (click me). You can't see it very well but i have a partition panel with 1/4 space at top and bottom to allow air to move between the 2 chambers. Using this method I never see a difference of more than .5 degrees between the two sides.
