Heating and plastic

Hello all!

I have a rather important question to ask..I am housing some albinos in a Sterilite container..you know, the ones made out of polyurethane..and I have gotten a RH-7 Repti-therm mini UTH for them (rather than a heat light to keep the stress to their eyes down some). It says on the package that I can use it with plastic. However, I was wondering if anyone had, indeed, done that with a sterilite container..it's a good bit flimsier than a "plastic terrarium" and I, of course, don't want to start a house fire or anything like that!

Any thoughts/experiences on this? For now, I have a light set up for them, but would like to switch to the UTH if possible and safe. Thanks in advance for any advice!

At the temps your UTH should be at, there are no problems. I use the sterilite tubs myself. If it's hot enough to melt the tub, it's certainly hot enough to kill your gecko. Just be sure to use a rheostat or thermostat and you'll be fine.

It's usually safe, as long as you put a thermostat of some kind on it. If the UTH shorts out or something they can, and do, get EXTREMELY hot. Don't use one without a thermostat, but otherwise you should be fine.

Thanks for the replies..I gotta say though, I've never used a thermostat before. a) where can I find a cheapish one that works well, and b) how do you know what temperature to set it on?
Thanks again for the help!

a) Any online reptile supply store (LLLReptile.com, BigAppleHerp.com, ReptileSupply.com, Ect. http://www.google.com/search?hs=O0H&...ly&btnG=Search)
b) You use a thermometer. Target/Walmart all have nice digital ones for under $10.

Can one thermostat control multiple heat pads? If not how do you people deal with it? One for each heat pad? That seems prohibitively expensive.

most thermostats will control multiple heatpads (maybe with an extra power strip), but it will control them all exactly the same way. That's fine, if they are all kept close to each other in ambient temperature, but not good if you are trying to control a cage that is normally a different temperature.

For example, one of my entire racks (20 bins) is controlled by one thermostat, because the air temp around the rack is the same temp for all bins (it's actually controlling 5 heat strips, but same theory). But I wouldn't tie my other rack (in a different room) on the same thermostat, because what's perfect for one may be cooking the other depending on the environment each is in.

Oh yeah.. forgot to mention. Prohibitively expensive is completely relative. There are many people here who have $100 proportional thermostats, so the $20 on a repti-temp doesn't seem so bad (but remember, the more you pay the more control and accuracy you get)