the perfect temp...

It has been a royal pain in the tush to get my BP's temperatures perfect recently...

I switched off of the UTHs I was using for her, because while the substrate was nice and warm the ambient temp was entirely too low. My vet recommended using ceramic heaters instead.

So after much fussing and fuming and cursing, I have these numbers:

basking temp: 90F

Favorite hide (warm side): 80-82F
Ambient temp (warm side): 83-84F

Other hide (cool side):72-73F
Ambient temp (cool side): 72-73F
Tree (yes she climbs): 75-78F

Am I okay? Please dear god someone tell me I can stop obsessing and adjusting and whatnot. I am driving everyone else in the house crazy. :)

Well you vet would be wrong in this case, hehe. Ball Pythons stay on the ground, so the most important thing is the ground. I have cages at home with just under tank heaters and the ground is perfect, 93 on the hot side, 77 on the cool side. You don't need any over head heat, all those UTH's are perfect, you just need to control them with a dimmer switch or a rheostat.

Um... I think I trust the vet - he does exclusively see exotics. And when I say temp disparity, I mean the substrate was perfect but the top of the snake was 70F.

72 is a little cool IMO. I keep my pythons a bit cooler than recommended by people here but still, the lowest I let them get is 77-78.

When I kept Ball Pythons, the coldest I ever let them get was 82 degrees.

I think the big question is what kind of thermometers are you using? You should be using digital thermometers with a probe or a temp gun.

[QUOTE=CopperNightShade;1287886]It has been a royal pain in the tush to get my BP's temperatures perfect recently...
QUOTE]

Pun intended? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

I think the big question is what kind of thermometers are you using? You should be using digital thermometers with a probe or a temp gun.

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I am using a digital thermometer with a probe. Three of them, in fact.

(and me? guilty of a pun? :))

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CopperNightShade

Um... I think I trust the vet - he does exclusively see exotics. And when I say temp disparity, I mean the substrate was perfect but the top of the snake was 70F.

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well if you trust your vet why post the question steveboos tries to help you and you reply like that lol

get a oil heater for the entire room if your worried

Where are you placing the probes? Where were you placing them when you were using a UTH?

One UTH and a ceramic heat emitter should be enough to heat the whole tank even if your room temps are fairly low.

I don't know exactly what kind of replies you are looking for buy your temps sound very strange to me. You really should only have two. Ambient air temperature and hot side temperature.

Ball pythons don't really "bask" as in laying out to get heat from above. They get enough heat from the earth naturally, that is why many people recommend an under tank heater. As you have noticed, the temp in the hide is much lower then the "basking spot". The warm hide should be at 92*F and the cool hide should be around 80*F (the ambient temp for the whole tank).