Thermostat help

[AbranV]

Some of the guys at Home Depot and Lowes know me by name I'm there so often. Maybe not actually by name, I'm more known to them as "the dude that builds the crazy sh**" Its a great resource to utilize. I only wish they carried smaller bulkheads and ball valves.

Here's a question to test your knowledge.

Let's use your bigger UTH as an example. Would a dimmer or thermostat allow you to RAISE the temperature of the UTH higher than just plugging it into an outlet?

I have some nichrome wire that I used to build a homemade styrofoam hot wire cutter. I know that I can crank that up pretty hot to the point the wire would be red hot. Its the same type of wire in the Zoo Med UTH heaters, obviously different gauge.

I have the same 10-20 gallon UTH on my roach bin, as I do on the side of the pacman tank and it easily hits the mid eighties. The only difference is that it's mounted under the tank and the heat isn't getting released into the room.

I'm also thinking of conducting an experiment on an empty 10gallon tank. I'm thinking of using a small UTH mounted under the tank and building your standard egg crate false bottom, but only an inch or two tall. I'll cover it with window screen but also place a layer of quilt batting over the screen. The theory being that the UTH would warm the air below the substrate, and then the substrate itself. The quilt batting would protect the frog from rubbing against the window screen. It should help the overall humidity and temperature, but also protect the frog from burning itself. The only problem I haven't worked out yet is making sure the glass doesn't crack. I've misted my roach tank with no problems.

Any thoughts?

[monster]

If I leave the dimmer at full and didn't adjust anything my tank will hit 84f in which its the same if I just plugged the UTH into the wall directly. I really got the dimmer to beable to turn it down if the temps raised to much for some reason and to turn it down at night. And I think with the thermostat even if it is set at lets say 85f and your matt is only able to hit an airtemp of 82f, your still only going to get 82f even if it is set at 85f. I guess you would need to make sure your heat source could produce the heat your setting the thermostat at. That's my guess on that question and if im wrong someone please correct me, im still learning and trying to make sense of some stuff myself. for the mounting on the bottom I know a lot always say don't it put there it can burn them. While I agree with this to some degree I wouldn't put on the bottom for the reason these are burrowing frogs, and when they get warm they will go under the substrate to cool off and get away from the heat. If his substrate is warm he wont be able to regulate his body temperature properly and it wonder why he cant cool off.