I've been reading a lot here the last few days.

My son (12 next month) brought home a young male Lemon Blast yesterday afternoon. We do not have a scale yet but he's approximately 18" long at this point.

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My son has had tarantulas for the last three years and mom FINALLY agreed to a snake. We've been working on the tank for the last couple of days trying to get things dialed in and we're thinking we've just about got it but thought we would run it by a couple of folks who know a little more about it than us.

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We're using a 10 gal tank to start with; basic set-up to learn on (especially for keeping clean) with 2 hides, water dish and a lamp at this point. We have a UTH under the hot end of the tank but it was not enough by itself and was too much in combination with the light. So as of this evening we are running just the light and are currently seeing 83 F air temps on the cool end with surface temps running 79-82 F and the hot end is 90 F air temp with the surface temps from 86-89 F (using an infrared gun to measure the surface temps). At the moment the humidity is hovering around 58%. You'll notice the cooking rack on the top of the tank - it lifts the light about an inch off the screen and brought the air temps down to what I listed above.

This is the bulb we are running currently.

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Our only real concern at this point is the temp of the enclosure on the hot end of the tank; being close the lamp the surface temp of the hide reads 93.8 F, but the soil inside shows upper 80's when we shoot it with the gun. I'm thinking if the little guy is getting too warm he'll head over to the cooler hide as opposed to baking inside the hot hide.

Any thoughts or suggestions at this point?


Thanks in advance!!!