Using a thermostat

When setting up your reptiles vivarium or terrarium maintaining the correct temperature is vitally important, too hot or too cold and your pets health will suffer greatly.

Without the use of a thermostat, trying to maintain the correct temperature is a balancing act of trying to use the correct wattage heating to hit the right temperaures without going over or under, this does not take into account seasonal variations in external temperature which will push your vivariums temperatures over or under with catastrophic effects.

Our advise is always use a thermostat as an integral part of your vivariums enviromental control system.

Basically a thermostat will monitor your vivariums internal temperature at a set place using a probe, you set the required temperature on the thermostat and the unit will then either switch the heat source on or off depending on wether more heat is required or not. More advanced thermostats are capabale of dimming a light bulb instead of switching it off to create a more steady temperature or by adjusting the flow of electricity in pulses to finely control the temperature.

A vivarium thermostat comes ready to use and no wiring is required, simply plug in your heat source, place the thermostat probe a short distance away from the heat source, set the temperature required on the unit and switch on.