Some temp advice for a new blood python owner

A few days ago I picked up my first python from a local breeder, I was either going to step into pythons or get another Colubrid. Anyways I bring him home and set him up in a 15 long it’s about half the height of a 10 gallon and a little longer. I have a heat mat 2 hides on hot and cold side a water dish in the middle and a heat mat under his hot side hide set at 85. I have him on a mix of spagnum and cypress about 1 1/2 inches thick every where but on top of his heat mat I also covered a good portion of his screened lid on the outside with tin foil. I also splurged and got him a 40 watt nano ceramic heat emitter something relatively low wattage for the height of the tank (I can also use it for my hognose when my blood outgrows his current living situation). Anyways, I’m having a rough go of it trying to perfect my temps in his tank I went to the local reptile shop to ask about raising ambient temps and one of the ladies their told me to raise his heat mat temperature high enough that it will make his substrate warms enough that he does not have to burrow I immediately disregarded this information as potentially harmful and left. I was hoping I could get some help with a few questions I have learned a lot from this forum just browsing so this is my first post

-will it be ok to use the CHE on my bloods tank to raise ambients? I don’t worry to much about humidity as I am in south Florida and a few sprays gets me between 60 and 70% for a good while.

-My ambient temps on my thermometer reads between 79-81 on the hot side but this doesn’t take into account the substrate temp which sits at the low 70s I measure with my temp gun. Is the substrate temp suppose to match the ambients?

- How much of the screen lid can I safely cover in foil while maintaining good ventilation? Could I cut out just a portion for the CHE or do I need to make hole around the edges as well?

Essentially I just need some advice on raising my ambients in a glass tank I know plastic tubs would have been a better option and I am not opposed to it. I have spent a lot of money so far and I am willing to spend a lot more to do this perfectly I may be new to pythons but I am very passionate about my animals and doing this right. I don’t have a temp controlled room and my temps fluctuate quite a bit from low 70s to high 70s I’ve been keeping my room temp at 78 just to raise my ambients in my tank while I figure out his heating situation which is god awful lol. I will try to post some pictures ASAP

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Forgot to mention I have his heat mat on a thermostat and plan on doing the same for the CHE if that is a viable option

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...allery/2otaREP

https://imgur.com/gallery/2otaREP


a photo of what he is in now

Sounds like you’re on the right track. CHE will help with ambient and I advise regulating it with a thermostat as well. You can cover a good bit of the screen with foil and that should help too. The CHE will likely dry out your humidity a bit, but being in Florida you might not have a huge issue.
What type of thermometer are your measuring temps with? Tapatalk for your phone or tablet is the easiest way to upload pictures
(Edit: just saw digital thermometer in your picture. [emoji106])

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you for the response, my heat mat is plugged into the temp controlled thermostat and the ambient is measured with one of those digital thermometers although I don’t know how good it actually is the hygrometer is out of sight in the back. I don’t know how much humidity I might lose with the CHE but it might be a good thing I spray that dang tank twice and it jumps to high lol. How important is the substrate temperature? and Is substrate temperature referred to as surface temperature?

Substrate temperature is not the best thing to calibrate with. Be sure you are taking UTH surface temps directly on the glass above the heat mat (most direct and hottest area the animal can touch). For ambients, I generally take the temp on the cool side or middle of the enclosure using an acurite digital thermometer or a temp gun. An infrared point and shot temp gun is a very nice tool to have on hand for these purposes and will give you a fast reading of anything you want to measure in the enclosure.

Humidity in the 50-60% range is good, you want ambient temps to be 78-82 and a hot spot of 84-86. A CHE can work but you don't want to depend on spraying to keep your humidity up, that makes it constantly unstable jumping from hi to low which is very hard on a snake's system. A water bowl right underneath the bulb and using the least powerful possible wattage to keep temps will help. I wouldn't go covering your air flow too heavily. Glad you didn't listen to the advice to crank up the heating pad! Yikes. If you can keep your room temps at 75+ you probably be fine with a heating pad alone.

Thanks a bunch for the advice this forum is so much more helpful then a lot of the other readily available information gathering sites out their like reddit and the like. This is my first python I’ve had I’m used to colubrids who’s care is leagues different. Sounds like I’m not as far off as I thought I was I’ll keep doing some tweaking until everything is in order.

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Originally Posted by Shake_down94

Thanks a bunch for the advice this forum is so much more helpful then a lot of the other readily available information gathering sites out their like reddit and the like. This is my first python I’ve had I’m used to colubrids who’s care is leagues different. Sounds like I’m not as far off as I thought I was I’ll keep doing some tweaking until everything is in order.

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Far too many people giving bad advice out there. Glad your BS alert went off in your head. Most of the time they will thermoregulate, but it's not terribly uncommon for a BP to burrow to hide regardless what the temps are, even when they have hides in there. I could see the actual hotspot on the floor of the enclosure getting 110-120 easy to get the ambient temps some people are recommending.