Tub Heating Question

[alyssa_lennon]

Hi everyone. I am new to the forum, this is my first post.

I will be getting my first bp shortly, but first I want to make sure everything is on working order. I’ve set up a 15 qts tub with two hides touching all sides of the hatchling and a water bowl in the middle, I use paper towels as substrate and I am planning on switching to regular newspaper once I’m 100% sure there are no mites. I have a UTH on the hot side connected to a thermostat and a digital thermometer/hygrometer to monitor the temps.

After being connected over 48 hours, I easily reached 94 F in the hot side, but the cold side stayed extremely cold: around 67 F (it was 57 F outside). Is this even possible? How can the hot side be so hot and the cold side so cold? I’ve checked the thermometer and it works perfectly. Also, the humidity is way too high, over 80% (I live in a very humid place). I though that perhaps I had made too many holes, so I covered some of them and the temperature improved, but the humidity increased even more. Same thing happened when I covered half the tub with tin foil. I know I could get this fixed by buying a second UTH and a second thermostat, but is there a way around this? I decided to post after searching for answers online and on this forum and doing everything that was suggested to other posters.

Any ideas will be welcomed with open arms!

Thanks in advance

[starmom]

Well, the first thing I might try would be to move the water bowl to the cold end of the tub so that the humidity decreases. I would also bring down the hot side temps to 92F so you don't cook your snake
Also, is the tub enclosed at all (like in a box)? If not, this might be needed to help hold in heat. Additionally, maybe you could heat a larger area????
Do you have a picture that you could post? Everything that you're doing sounds really great and now you're just tweaking things to get it perfect!!

[alyssa_lennon]

Thanks for replying starmom! I was afraid my post was too long LOL

Well, I will try and move the water bowl to the cold side so as to bring the humidity down, right now it is in the middle. I will also bring the hot side down to 92F.

The tub is not enclosed at all, is that something that would work? It is placed on a wooden self. My boyfriend thinks that it is the wood that is preventing me from reaching the perfect temps, he might be right...

I don't have pics of the enclosure as it is now, I took some the day I bought everything, so as to have an idea of what it would look like. It looks the same now, except for the fact that I added the UTH under it and that I attached the thermometer to it.

[SatanicIntention]

Try a much smaller bowl(shorter and not as much surface area). Also, you will either want to cut those hides down so they aren't more than about an inch or two high, or you can get the bottoms that fit on those pots(the water catchers). They make great hides and all you have to do is cut small entrances in the sides.

[alyssa_lennon]

Okay, I will definately take your advice and cut those hides in half. I will also get a smaller bowl. Once I get home today I will check all that out and see what happens... I doubt the temperature will be any different but at least the humidity will improve... THANKS!

[ThyTempest]

Another uth set to a diff temp will def fix your problem. I dont know much about thermostats, but I think most of them can control more than 1 device. If you live in a really humid place, drill/solder more holes in the tub. This will help cut down the humidity and help keep good air flow, which means you dont get stagnant air. Like people said, get a different water bowl, wide and shallow is good, just big enough to allow your bp to soak in, and about half as deep as the snake is wide. I tend to think commercial brands like exo-terra are best for water dishes, as they are perfect sizes, and heavyweight so they dont tip them over. Also, if humidity is still really high, use a lamp, which will increase your ambient temps and suck down some humidity. There are some stickies on how to do this, but if you need some help, just send me a pm.

Good luck