BP Digging

[tideguyinva]

I just recently redone my 2 yr old BP tank. She has an undertank heater 16 watts on one side and a 50 watt dome on the other side. This has been like this for about a week. Today she started digging all the substrate from the area where the dome lamp is. It was all pushed to the UTH side. What am I doing wrong? Or what is going on. She has never done that before.

[snakelady]

You only want to have the heat on one side of the tank. So one side is warm and the other is the cooler end. I don't know if that is why she is digging but...?

[tideguyinva]

I asked the heating question a few days ago and the consensus was opposite sides.

[tideguyinva]

Does anyone know what in the world she is trying to do. I might have to turn the UTH down or something. Any ideas?

[drgonzo]

is she burying herself? if she is then its probably because she doesn't feel secure maybe the hides are too big. my bp was doing that too and i just threw some crumpled up newspaper in her hides and that did the trick

[mrmertz]

We have a redtailed boa and even at the shop where we bought him you couldn't find him - we thought the tank was empty! He LOVES burying under the substate and we figured that it was because he didn't have enough of a hide.

Well, now he's home here and what does he do? Buries under the substrate. Go figure. And where he buries is under his hide directly on top of his UTH. Luckily we have an Exo Rainforest UTH pad so it gets warm, but not very hot.

Our BP is the EXACT opposite. Rarely during the evening when I go spy on him is her on the substrate at all - he loves cruising the branches CONSTANTLY and sleeps right in the middle of the two heat/cool zones for the most part.

I dunno...perhaps both our burrowers have groundhog lineage in them somewhere.

Jeff

[mrmertz]

Just a side note...from your other post with the heating diagram for your new BP - bottom diagram! Always have your heat sources (lamp, UTH, etc) on the SAME side.

Jeff

[dr del]

Just a side note...from your other post with the heating diagram for your new BP - bottom diagram! Always have your heat sources (lamp, UTH, etc) on the SAME side.

Jeff

Hi,

That only holds true if your heating on the warm end (when dialed in correctly) keps the cool end at the proper temperature as well.

If your cold end is too cool then it needs some form of heating to supplement it.


dr del

[tideguyinva]

I just purchased a Herpstat II and will be getting some flexwatt also and that should make everything awesome

[elusivereptiles]

I've found with my personal experience that it's best to only have your heat sources on one side, otherwise when the snake feels like it's to hot, it doesn't have any place to go to. I had a BP do that exact same thing when I had heat on both sides of his tank, and when I changed to just one side he stopped, and hasn't done it since. Well occassionally he'll get under his water dish, but that's only when he's getting ready to shed.