Silly Questions on Housing From a Newbie

[Jazi]

Long-time lurker here, finally registered when I had a few questions that didn't seem to be answered by my usual method of sniffing around. I bought my boy (6.5mos/24in/250g) from ReptileRapture about 1.5 months ago and plopped him in the 55gal that I got off of craigslist bundled with a lot of starter supplies for $80. I'm now aware that it's too big for him and properly cluttered it up with several hide options to keep him feeling secure.

This is the set-up I have currently, sans a hide as I was in the process of upgrading his warm one since he outgrew the last set:


And with the towel...


I'm aware that the first picture displays temperatures way off the mark; without the towel his temps and humidity plummet to the ambient in my apartment, and I have no control over that as it's hooked through a central system my landlord controls for everyone in the house. With the towel his warm spot registers at 88-92, ambient 77-82, cool 73-75, humidity 60-45% before I refresh it, 70-55% during shed. And yes, he is on my dining room table Only place that a 48x18x12 fits in a small 1br.

Which brings me to my point; I've been looking into saving some money to buy the Animal Plastics T3 with lock and light to make regulating his humidity not so much of a pain in the butt. Refreshing the substrate and dampening the towel every other day isn't that annoying, but I feel bad for him every time I open the tank to spot clean or feed him since there's so much fluctuation once the towel is gone. I'm not sure if it's stressing him out, I'd assume not as he hides well, eats well, first shed was fantastic and in 1 piece, seems to be plumping up nicely, and has remained laidback and docile even through my rookie mistakes.

With the T3's design am I still going to have the same fluctuation as soon as I slide the doors open, or will that hopefully fix the issue? And, stupid question time, will I be able to use my spare unopened ZooMed UTH (made for a 55gal) or will I need to use their heat tape? Stupid questions #2-10, but I'm a bit confused about heat tape in general and how it differs from a UTH... is it built into the enclosure? Do you need to fasten it to something? How would you keep it from burning furniture or perhaps other pets that might be too curious for their own good, like a cat? I'm over here imagining a bare coiled piece of wire taped to the outside walls.

In the same line of questioning, I've got the Hydrofarm thermostat that every newbie owner apparently is drawn to, which according to this forum is a piece of junk. What are the reasons behind that? The only problem I've seen is that I can set the thermostat to 100ºF and my temp gun says the temperature of the substrate is 92. Normal? Or is that the reason the thing is supposed to be a POS? If so, would an upgrade to the Herpstat Intro fix the issue of my thermostat lying to me?

Sorry for the tl;dr post and the legions of possibly really dumb questions. I figured the more information I had about my current setup, the better idea you guys would have on what I could do to improve it.

[Jason Bowden]

You did a great job! First you sniffed around and learned about the animal you are taking care of. That's the best thing you could've done.

The POS thermostat will work for you, just watch your temps regularly---like you have been. You can always upgrade.

The animal plastics cage would be awesome. Like you said, It will hold temps and humidity very well.
Also, I think you will really like the front opening instead of trying to clean from the top of an aquarium.

[Skittles1101]

I agree, I am thoroughly impressed with your newbie set up. Good work researching before you got him because even though it's huge it doesn't look like it because of all the clutter. I'm also quite happy to see a thermostat, most newbies don't get that far before they get the snake...

As far as temps, I'd make sure you measure the temps under the substrate. Ball pythons tend to burrow, and if the temps above the substrate is reading 92, then it is much much hotter underneath and it can cause a burn. The thermostat is meant to control the UTH, so if the UTH is set to 100 degrees, then the area you are measuring temp could be above or below what you set it to because you're not measuring the UTH. The thermostat on my rack is set to 107.5 to achieve 90 degrees inside the tubs...

Heat tape goes on the outside, just like a UTH. And a thermostat keeps it from burning anything, just like a UTH. I like flexwatt because I can secure it to anything with electrical tape and it evenly heats a little better than store bought UTHs. Not a huge difference though if the UTH is working out okay.

Another thing you could do is insulate the outside of the tank. You could secure styrofoam along the sides and back which will help keep heat in. If I needed to insulate, I'd probably spray paint the styrofoam black too just to it looks nicer. I use adhesive Con-tact paper along the sides and back to add some security for my tank.

[Jazi]

Thanks guys!

I used to own rodents (hamsters/gerbils/rats) so I understand the importance of proper housing for exotics, and having two BP breeders to prod when troubles arise helps a lot. Between them, the caresheet on this forum, and the internet I was able to get a mostly functional tank pre-purchase that I later ended up having to tweak a few weeks ago anyway. Practice is always better than theory, I suppose ;3

I hadn't realized that about the probe; I've got it buried under a thin layer of substrate but it's not resting directly on the pad. Good to know that that's not an issue and more of me just not knowing where to put the thing. He hasn't shown an interest in burrowing, but I do have his hides partially buried deeper in the substrate than just the surface.

Good to know about heat tape, I might invest in that for the T3 then :3 The current UTH I have is working fine, the one that initially came with the tank had been removed previously and I think a wire had shorted inside. When set to 100 there were parts of the warm side showing at 110+ (record highest being 113 in a spot he'd wedged himself between the wall and water bowl) while others were barely 90 and sadly my boy got a few minor burns on his belly. They're gone now, too minor to leave a visible scar, and I replaced the UTH and bought a spare just in case.

I hadn't thought about insulating it, and am now kicking myself for throwing out the styrofoam that came in the box with delicious mousicles. Ah well, next order I'll leave a mental note to keep it and see about attaching it to the glass.

[tlich]

I used black foam board from Walmart and black duct tape, don't have to worry about painting it, and it don't look bad either..

[The Serpent Merchant]

Read this thread about Animal Plastics cages, it might help answer your questions about them: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...69#post1763769

I would recommend that you get a T8, they cost less and have more room. You can even put 2 BP's in 1 T8 when you use a divider.

I don't recommend using a zoo-med UTH with AP cages. AP cages are made from 1/2" PVC and I have found that they simply aren't up to the task.

[The Serpent Merchant]

The issue with the hydrofarm thermostat is that it is an "on/off" style thermostat. what this means is that to regulate the temperature you set it turns the heat source on full blast then turns it completely off. this means that the temperatures fluctuate a lot.

Proportional thermostats ( like the herpstat http://spyderrobotics.com/ ) are much better because they actually vary the amount of power that goes to the heat source. this means that the temperatures are maintained much better.

I can explain the differences in more detail if you want, but that's the difference that is important.

[Jazi]

That's silly, why would the bigger cage be less expensive Ah well, then as someone with a T8, do you notice a major difference in humidity and heat when you've got the door open for extended periods of time, such as during cleaning or feeding (if you feed in enclosure)? Ambient in my apartment is 70º/20% in the winter and seems to suck out the tank heat and humidity like a vacuum if I've got the towel off for more than a few moments. Like I said, the fluctuation doesn't seem to bug him much but as an animal with special requirements I do worry that it might. That's the main reason I want a PVC cage, and if that doesn't fix it then I'll get creative on what to do otherwise

I haven't seen much fluctuation on the thermostat itself; I set it to 100, turns off as soon as it gets there and may get up to 102 from residual heat, turns back on at 98 but may drop to 96 before it starts really warming up again. With my temp gun I've noticed the substrate under the hide hits 88 at coldest and 92 at warmest, so unless a 4º difference is bad I haven't had a problem with that. Would a proportional thermostat keep it at a constant 90º?

Does the T8 have a slightly elevated bottom like a tank's? If not, how would I keep a flexwatt secured to the bottom from making my enclosure into a see-saw or worse, lighting my table on fire? As for heat panels, are they truly unable to burn your snakes or is that just marketing (like heat rocks)? How would I secure the probe directly underneath one (hovering in the air?), or does that mean I would just put the probe on the substrate beneath one? I told you, I'm full of really dumb questions.

Thanks tlich, I'll definitely look into that as well. I'm an art student, maybe I can get fancy and paint the side facing inwards a nice rainforesty theme He might not notice but it'll make his tank look more attractive in the mean time.

[The Serpent Merchant]

I see a difference if I keep the glass off for a few hours, but not if I'm just opening and closing it. my T8's pretty much stay at 60% humidity all the time.

a proportional thermostat will keep the temperature at 90 degrees all the time maybe a half degree variance.

the T8 is completely flat, but flexwatt is only 0.01 inches thick (for comparison a sheet of printer paper is 0.004 inches thick so flexwatt is about the thickness of 2 sheets of paper) as long as the flexwatt is regulated by a thermostat it won't get hot enough to cause any problems.

this is how it is sectored to the bottom:



and once again read this, I guarantee it will answer most of your questions: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...With-Pictures!

[Jazi]

I did read it, a couple times to make sure I hadn't missed anything :x I saw how it attaches, just wasn't sure on the thickness and wondered how you got it to lay flat and not light things on fire :3 From the pictures it looked thicker, .5-1in to me, which is why I was wondering how to keep the thing from turning into a see-saw.

I did see "Radiant Heat Pannel: The thermostat probe will need to be secured inside the cage directly under the Radiant Heat Panel." but it doesn't answer the question of whether I'm plopping my probe on the substrate and that would be "directly beneath", or if I'm somehow wiring it up to be against the heat panel on the ceiling, or whether there truly is no risk of burning my snake as I've read countless caresheets that warn against putting heating elements where he could reach. We've already been through burns once and understandably I'm a bit reluctant to risk it again.