Need Some Heating Help!

[jaelynn]

I have a 40 gallon tank and have really been struggling to keep the heat anywhere near where it should be (which is pretty warm since I have 2 straws in there). Humidity isn't an issue.

I had one large UTH on the back of the tank, and had to keep a space heater pointed at the tank at all times. I also have a hood lid with a light on that produces some heat.

Today I bought another UTH and have mounted that as well, but it hasn't boosted it enough.

I know Ultratherm is often suggested, unfortunately I am in Canada and they won't ship to me. Even off of amazon/eBay they won't ship to my town (small town problems)

Any suggestions on how I can spike the heat? With the space heater pointed at it, I can /maybe/ get it to 85, with just the UTH it is no where near that. Unfortunately I can't leave the space heater on when nobody is home, due to the way I have it rigged to point at the tank being a slight fire hazard (and that's not the type of warmth I'm going for :p).

So basically, TL;DR : can't keep heat up, help?! thanks!


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[casssch]

I had heat problems as well. I insulated my tank where I could. I have one heater I can't insulate, so I insulated under it and around the substrate on the front and other side, and my entire back over the ultratherm. I also have a wire mesh lid that I covered with foil and two folded towels to finally get my heat up.

[wodesorel]

Have you checked to make sure your thermometer is working correctly? It sounds like you're having to pump a heck of a lot of heat into your tank! How warm is the room the tank is in?

[jaelynn]

My lid is mesh too! I have the hood lid from the 20 gallon on top of the mesh lid, and then two and a half layers of tin foil on either side to try and keep the heat in. I may have to try insulating the back over the heating pads too. I'm seriously thinking about going out and buying another heating pad, which would put me at ~100 in UTH in the past couple months. Not exactly broke university student budget friendly

Wodesorel- I had thought the digital thermometer may be broken, so I tested it by taking it out of the tank and comparing it to the digital room thermometer that we have in the living room. They were the same, and both matched the thermostat for the heat in the house.

We keep the house between 70-73ish. At first I thought I couldn't keep it warm because my area was going through a major deep freeze where the outside temperature was around -31F for weeks and everything was cold. But now we have been in the 40s and things are still as hard to warm up.

Is away from the window and door, so there isn't any draft or breeze that would be chilling it either. I am at a legitimate loss of what to do at this point.


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