Bought a UTH-need help.

[Austin]

I'm going to get a leopard gecko. So I purchased a zoomed under tank heater pad...

Its on the bottom of the tank. The tile which is above it, is not heating up over 83F. The temperature in that tank, without the heat pad, is 83F.

I felt the heat pad from under the tank and it's very warm, but the tank itself does not seem to be heating up. Any suggestions for what I may be doing wrong?


edit- I lift up the tile,and felt the glass (in the tank). It's very warm, I'm now thinking that the tile I'm using is too thick. So the heat can't pass through, it's around 1 cm thick. Any input?

[sinflspeed]

"Tile" is it a bathroom tile? Most UTH heaters are used to heat a substrate because the radiate the heat that is produced by the UTH. If it is a regulare house tile you would have to think of it as the fact that most of the surface area being heated by the UTH is not being touched by the UTH. The best way in to attach the UTH directly to the tile and that kind of defeats the purpose of having a UTH. You might want to get a sand substrate and either place it under the tile to create more surface area or use just the sand as the your only source of substrate.

[Austin]

Thanks, but I resolved the problem.

Picked up some ceramic(sp?) tile, and temperatures jumped to 89, right where I want them.