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newbie defacto snake owner tank too cool!
Hi All, At my son’s prompting, my wife bought him a BP, and a Zoo Med tank kit w/ “everything you need”, which is clearly not the case... As I suspected, primary care-taking has fallen to me, and I know almost nothing about caring for snakes. I’m already cringing at the replies I’m going to get from all the pros out there, so take it easy on me. I’m trying to improve our snakes quality of life.
We’ve had her for a few months now, and she’s eaten a few times, and pooped maybe twice. After some trial and error, I think I have a good system for humidity; I wet a dish towel, lay it over the screen, and cover it with a piece of plexiglass. The problem is I can’t get the temperature right….it’s WAAAY too cool. Consequently (I’m assuming), she’s coiled-up in her hide ALL of the time and almost never comes out. I have the hide in the middle of the tank, I have a heat pad underneath the left side, and a heat lamp resting on the mesh top on the left as well. I have an infrared heat gun, and it reads 70F in the middle, and like 75F on the left (warm) side. With a heat pad and a red heat lamp that are both on 24x7, how could it be so cool still? What adjustments would you make to make it warmer? No idea the wattage of the heat pad, but the lamp is Ambient temp in our house mid-winter is cool, like 64F, so that certainly doesn’t help. I can’t jack the temp just for the snake unfortunately. I'd post pictures of the setup, but I'm too new.
I’m also thinking the tank they sold us is way too small too. She’s like 3.5 to 4ft long in a 20 gal tank. I need a bigger tank, right?
I’ve had some small issues with mites here and there, so I got kind of spooked about loose substrate, thinking that might be a source, so I use paper towels to line the floor of the tank. Would you recommend Aspen snake bedding instead?
Assuming I can get the temp jacked-up, should the light be on a timer so it’s out some of the time to maintain proper biorhythms, or does it not matter? I also don’t want it to get too cool without it on.
Thanks to ALL for your help!! I’m sure Samantha thanks you too!
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CALM Pythons (02-08-2018)
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