Proper temperature gradient

[patattack]

So I haven't gotten my ball yet, because I want to make sure the tank is more-or-less perfect ahead of time. Yesterday morning I hooked up the UTH to a thermostat (Reptitemp from ZooMed) and plugged in my infrared light on the other side. It's been over 24 hours, so I feel like the tank has reached a fairly stable temperature by now.

Over the past day, I've been keeping an eye on the thermometers to see what kind of range I'm getting. On my hot (UTH) side, the thermometer probe is usually listing between 87 and 89 degrees F. On the cool (red bulb) side, the probe is listing between 80 and 83. Is that an acceptable range? I feel like the hot side should be crossing the line into the low 90s, but I'm not sure where I got that impression. Also, even if I did want to increase the heat on the hot side, I couldn't - because the dial on my Reptitemp is turned to the highest possible setting!

So you have an idea, I'm using a 10-gallon tank. I've got the back and sides covered with black mat-board. I have a screen-top that is about 2/3 covered by aluminum foil to hold in heat/humidity. My substrate is aspen over newspaper. The hot side probe is under a hide, the cool side probe is lying exposed to lamp on the aspen since I still need to get another hide for that side.

Another quick question: I know balls can burn themselves easily, so you need to keep heat sources out of their reach. Is it dangerous to have a heat lamp resting directly on the screen? Right now I'm using a clip to keep it several inches above the screen, but I feel like I'm wasting a lot of heat/light that way.

[littleindiangirl]

I put my lamp right on the screen. I had foil covering all of the screen except for where the lamp was.

As to the reptitemp, it's more akin to a rheostat, in that it flucuates. I think 89 is an acceptable hot spot temp, but others will say otherwise. If you can, I know it sucks (having used a reptitemp) bump it up a little bit more, the hottest I would let it go is 94.

See if you can get it there, I bet you you can.

Also, something to keep in mind is purchasing a temp gun, they are insanely fast, and will give you a better temp reading than your probe thermometer.

[patattack]

Weeeelll....I've got the probe for the Reptitemp taped directly to the bottom of the UTH, ostensibly to get a super-accurate reading. But if I moved it into the tank itself, putting some distance between the probe and the UTH might allow me to bump up the temperature a bit more.

[littleindiangirl]

Yup, that will do it as well. I hot glued my probe right to the glass, and only had an inch of substrate. Or you could hot glue it to the bottom of the hide. Or just hot glue to the side of the glass, just above the substrate line... any of those will work.

Tape is a no no for enclosures. The snake can get stuck and lose scales.

[patattack]

For now I just moved the Reptitemp probe inside the tank, next to the hot-side thermometer probe. Both are not touching the glass, but slightly buried in the substrate. The substrate is probably about an inch deep, by the way. If that placement works out, perhaps I'll affix it more permanently, but now I've gotta get to work. I'll report back later tonight, but anyone else can feel free to chime in with their temp gradient opinions!

[littleindiangirl]

Sounds good, that's all you can really do at this stage in the game! Find out where you get the proper hot spot gradient at. 90-95

[patattack]

Hahaha, so I moved the probe without changing the dial setting on the Reptitemp...I came home to find the thermometer at a solid 106.5! Guess I'll need to fiddle with the dial. It's a little annoying that there aren't any actual temperature markings on the dial, just "low" and "high". Ah well.

Also, I tried putting my light directly on the screen, and before long my cool side was up to 85 and climbing. I decided I was better off losing that energy and keeping it under 83.

[YvesA]

I used a Reptitemp for my BP before getting a Herpstat, what I did was set the probe at the same place where my thermometer was on the glass, and waited till it got to 92F then turned the dial until the light came off. I noticed that the UTH kepted going up a few degrees after it turned off, it maxed at something like 94F.

I didn't read what substrate you use...
I used reptile bark, so I had to only use just enough to cover the glass to get the top of the substrate to ~90F.
Take note of the temps when the light goes on and off for a few hours, you'll need to readjust it a few times to make sure the temps don't go too high.

You can also use a smaller wattage infrared bulb for the cool side or use a Rheostat to get it to the temp you want.

I used a Reptitemp for about a month while waiting to get my Hepstat to come in (I'm in Canada and I had border issues). Let me tell you the peace of mind I had once I got the Herpstat was well worth the money.
Now my hot side stays within 0.3 degrees of what I set it.

[patattack]

Yeah, I've been constantly fiddling with it over the past couple of days. I'll figure out a good setting soon.

For the cool side, should I have my thermometer probe under the hide, or exposed to the heat lamp? Since it's not heated from underneath like the UTH side, it seems like it'd make kind of a big difference.

[littleindiangirl]

The cool end hide 'should' be the same as the ambient air temp. If your using an Accurite, the unit itself is placed on the cool end. I set mine up in the back corner of the tank on the cool end to get the air temp.

My probe from the accurite went to the hot spot hide, inside. Then I had both temps and the humidity all on one unit. Worked out well for me.