Hey everyone.

I am having many issues with temperatures with this new animal plastics rack I was given. It is a brand new iris 375 rack with 7 shelves. This rack is also heated with belly heat.

The first issue I was having was that it would not regulate temperatures properly when utilizing the probe slot for holding the probe. I have since then change the location of the probe to directly on the flexwatt. Two days ago I started testing temperatures to get the hot spots correct and I was successful in getting the hotspots at a consistent 89-92 from the bottom to top shelf. In addition to this my cool side temperatures were at 81-83. Finally the humidity was reading at 50-55% inside the tubs. To achieve all of this I had to put my thermostat (herpstat 2) on 97 degrees. Up until this point I did not have anything in the rack other than the tubs (no substrate, hides, water bowls).
Yesterday I then added my aspen bedding as my substrate and as soon as I did that my humidity went way down to 32 at one point. Because of this I then added my water bowl which was fairly small but I started small to see how the humidity would adjust. With the small bowl it only went up to about 38%so I have now added a much larger bowl to hold more water. Also I have no holes in my tubs. I haven’t checked the humidity again since the new bowls have been added but they should be fine and I will check them very shortly.

My new problem lies with the temperatures. Ever since I have added the hides (irrelevant to the problem but just trying to be thorough on explaining what has changed), water bowls, and aspen bedding I am getting hot spot temperatures through the roof. What I mean is that they are no longer 89-92 but reaching max of 96-97! What would be the issue? I have since turned the temperatures back in increments every few hours to see if I can get my temperatures back in order and now have my herpstat 2 set all the way down to 94.2 from 97. In about a half hour from now I will be taking temperatures again to see what my readings are but this makes no sense. How can simply adding bedding, water bowl, and hides change a hot spot? They can’t affect the temperature of the flexwatt…..

I would like to finally end by mentioning that when I do get the hot spot readings of 96-97, it isn’t across the entire tub but more localized in one spot. The thing is it is never always the same spot each time I check. Also I am using the pro exotics pe-2 for heading surface temperatures.

Thank you. (Sorry for the long post)