Darn Canadian Winters

[Cody]

Yeah sorta stole the title from first time herps thread in the general forum, but I was thinking about posting this earlier.

Well, for the past few weeks the temperature has dropped in my room, due to fall and winter weather cooling things down. Which meant my tank went down in temperatures. A bit too much for my liking. For the past few weeks I've had to keep Pelota in her warm side, keeping it at a varying temp of 85-88, hoping she wouldn't venture off to the 70 degree cool side. Well it was fine for a few weeks until the last few nights, she's been going in the cool side. At first I thought "well she knows what she's doing. She should be back in the warm side soon enough". Well around 6am, many hours later, I went up to my room and checked the temps, and the cool side was still at 70 or so, and she was still in there. So I had to get little ice cold Pelota out of the hide and show her to the warm hide.
Of course, I wasn't sure if she likes cool temperatures or what, but I didn't want to take anymore chances, so I decided to move the cool hide near the center of the tank, so it's closer to the heat pad. Then I rearranged the cage a bit around that. Now her warm hide is still the same, but a short bit away from that, in the center of the cage, is the cool side. Then I took the water bowl which was originally in the center of the cage, and put it in the far corner of the previous cool side. I put a bunch of my fake greenery around the bowl so she has some cover, and put some greenage on the hide thats in the middle of the tank for cover so it doesn't look so bare and open. Now last I checked a few hours ago, the temperatures were 88 warm, 80 cool. This should be okay right? The hides don't always have to be across the tank right? As long as she can thermoregulate between hides I hope.

Wish I could take some pictures. Both of the cage and Pelota. Haven't been able to post her yet. She's got such a lovely pattern.

[First_time_herp]

Well there you go stealing my topic titles. LOL!
I don't think theres anything wrong with that, I was thinking of doing that with Link's cool hide.

[Marla]

Sounds like you did a good job working it out.

[Smynx]

We have an old house, and on the main floor the temperatures tend to fluctuate a lot. In the winter, the room where I have my snakes tends to get pretty cold. So a couple weeks ago, I went to Lowe's and bought an electric heater with a thermostat on it. This is it: http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=prod...641-39646-5620 It's nice and quiet. I keep the thermostat set at 78, so I know the temperature in that room will never drop below that. It's worked so well that I'm probably going to end up buying a humidifier to put back there when it gets really cold so that I don't have to fret about the dry winter air.

[mlededee]

sweet, that looks pretty nice. i have a heater that i use in the room with my herps but it doesn't have a thermostat. i may have to swing by lowe's and see about picking one of those up. not that it is terribly cold here, but there is a month or two where the nights are way too chilly for my little cold blooded critters. thanks for the tip smynx!

[padiente]

my family turns the heat down everynight, and it stays retty nippy during the day. My temps have gone down a good bit. Kitty keeps hanging out on the cool side. I just changed his enclosure, new hide, new space, one new plant, same water source, same branch, one old plant. He does not want to stay in his warm hide and it is getting colder. What is the deal? He didn't really want to stay in his old hide in the new enclosure either. I had to replace it, but I didn't figure he would reject the new hide. What should I do? Should I try to raise the overall temps more than usual to compensate?

[Smynx]

Are you measuring surface temps or ambient temps? The surface of the enclosure may be warm than the air.

[padiente]

Are you measuring surface temps or ambient temps? The surface of the enclosure may be warm than the air.

Are you measuring surface temps or ambient temps?

Who me? I am measuring the ambient temp. The floor of the warm side is warmer than the air, but the wholt thing is not warm enough for my liking and the cool side really isn't

[Smynx]

Where do you have your thermometers placed? Are they close to the surface? If the thermometers aren't actually stuck to the sides of your enclosure, I suggest placing them right on the surface of the enclosure. Are you using analog or digital? Analogs are notorious for being wrong.

[Smynx]

Also, you might want to check temps inside the hides which can be much warmer than outside them.