Substrate and UTH placement

Ren1216 · Post by **Ren1216** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 8:18 am

I am getting ready to put my heater on my tank today. Ive read the isntructions on the ZooMed UTH but now Im not sure which will be the best placement of the heating pad. Ive read on here that if you side-mount your UTH, then the substrate should be deep enough to cover the size of your heater so that no glass is exposed without substrate to insulate it. There is no mention of that at all on the directions, and the picture shows the side mount clearly NOT below the substrate level... so I dont know if I can do it that way or not. Im also adding EE to half of my tank... should I put my heater under the EE or under the other half where Im leaving the sand (if I decide on a bottom mount)? Im worried if I place it under the new EE that it will be really HOT in that area with that combination. Any advice?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 10:13 am

I have one under my tank. My tank is all sand and maybe an inch deep over the UTH. The sand there is nice and warm but certainly not hot. Just experiment with substrate depths until you find one you (and your crabs) will be comfortable with.

Ren1216 · Post by **Ren1216** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 10:36 am

I had to make a decision, so I mounted it on the bottom under the EE... I will do like you said and experiment with different depths of substrate.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 5:18 pm

When I originally put ee into my tank I installed a UTH on the EE side. The only differnence it seemed to make was keeping the moisture "way" up. Above 80% without misting. Whereas with it under the sand side it just made warm sand.

motley crew · Post by **motley crew** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 5:41 pm

I have all EE and it tends to dry out a little fast right above the UTH but the rest of the tank is just fine and as long as vent it like the package said you should not have any problems