Temprature concerns/theories/questions

[Gouzman]

I have recently started keeping ball pythons. So far I have a pastel male about four months old at 250 grams, a normal female about two months old at 100 grams and a spider female about four months old at 120 g.

I am keeping them all in their own terrarium and using an UTH on one side of the enclosure, and I have taped a piece of cardboard over the UTH then laid down newspaper over the floor of the entire enclosure then finally I have used coconut husk as the bedding in the tank, so there is no real risk of the snakes getting stuck on the tape as it is buried way down below layers of substrate.

I was running the UTH 24/7 with no thermostat to automatically control the temps. I had a probe thermostat setup in each tank with the probe setup in the middle of each enclosure, up in the air, not lying on the ground. So in effect I was measuring the ambient air temperature in each enclosure. The ambient air temperature was varying in the region of 82 - 86 degrees. Now I know that in effect this needs to be the temperature on the hot side of the tank, so for interest sake I placed the temperature probe under the hide, directly on top of the coconut husk. The temperature in each hide is now fluctuating between 100 and 118 degrees! When I would put my hand on the husk above the UTH it would be warm to the touch, but not hot enough to burn anything.

I have now switched to controlling the temperatures automatically, and have the hot hides reading temperatures of 82 - 86 degrees.

Here are my concerns :

This drop in hot spot temperature is obviously going to drop the ambient air temperature inside the enclosure.

All of my snakes seemed to stay mostly on the cold side of the tank in their hides.

All of my snakes have been eating healthily, shedding properly and pooping properly while I had the probes measuring the ambient air temprature. ( in the middle of the enclosure, up in the air)

But now after much reading about the correct temperatures recommendations I have made the changes. Will this affect their behavior?

Where do you measure your temps with your snakes? Do you leave the probe lying on the substrate, as effectively this is where your snake will be in contact with the heat source? Or do you have it in the air on the hot side of the tank?

Since making the temperature adjustments the substrate directly about the UTH does not feel as warm to the touch.

Any theories or practices anyone might have, would be gratefully appreciated

This is Keith, my pastel male:



This is Holly my normal female



And this is Lily my spider female.



Here is the type of enclosure I am talking about. The hide on the right is the hot hide and the one on the left is the cold hide. I have also put a hide sort of inbetween for just in case that's what they fancy.

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[FireStorm]

What I have always done is put the thermostat probe in between the bottom of the enclosure and the UTH (so outside the enclosure) and then measure the temp under the substrate in the enclosure. You will have to adjust the set point on the thermostat until you figure out what works.

Since our body temperature is higher than the ideal temp for a ball python, it may be that the substrate doesn't feel warm to you but is still right for your snake. It just depends how warm your hands are, since "feels warm" and "feels cold" are somewhat relative.

Hopefully that all makes sense.