Just wanted to see if anyone had some tips for me???

OK, so i have a 20 long glass tank. I have a flukkers heat pad taped with aluminum tape to the bottom at the hide box side of the tank, and a 100 watt light at the other end over the water bowl. The substrate is paper and I keep it clean. I soak my bp's about every week and I feed them about every 5 days. I do not have a thermostat for the pads but it says they can not go past 100 degrees. And I dont think its to hot for them anyways. I keep the heat pad on when I go to sleep and I put the light on when I wake up. I turn the heat pad off when I turn the light on.
Is there anything I can do differently that might be better???

You really need a thermostat or rheostat for the UTH. The UTH can and will get to hot for your snake. There is also no need to soak your snake unless it has some stuck shed. Soaking can be very stressul for a snake.

Hi,

Have a read through our caresheet to get an idea of the way we normally recommend keeping them. :)


dr del

I would suggest putting the heat lamp on the same side as the UTH so that you will have one side that is always hotter than the other side - and not switch around from day to night. If you need added humidity, move the water bowl closer to the hot side.

First thing I suggest is getting a thermostat. If cash is tight you can get one for $40.00 at BigApple, this will be better than no thermostat. If using a screen top, cover it with foil or plexiglass or something to keep in the humidity (50-60% unless in shed, then 70-80%). Just leave some holes in it for ventilation. And like in the other post, no need to soak your snake that often. Usually only soak when they have a bad shed or when trying to get rid of mites. You want a cool side (78-85) as well as a hot side (85-93). And read the care sheets that the other poster mentioned.

ok will do. Thanks everyone for the usefull info. I am fixing to get a 20 tub rack before next month so I was thinking I could bipass all that. But I started seeing that the snakes where getting more stressed. So I will defintely use this info. Thanks again

Another thing is you probably don't need the heating lamp, because the uth will generally do it's job, and because snakes like ball pythons profit more from belly heat than from back heat (so heat they absorb from the ground and not heat from the ambient air), it helps them digest better.

Secondly, 100 is way too hot for a bp, the max it should ever get is 93 or 94. Thermostats are one of the most important herper tools, and as was said before, you don't need to switch the heating things during the day/night and you don't need to soak your snakes unless there's a problem.

Since you are planning on getting a rack, you will definitely need a thermostat for it, so you might as well get one now and use it on the tank, until you get the rack...

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Originally Posted by Vypyrz

Since you are planning on getting a rack, you will definitely need a thermostat for it, so you might as well get one now and use it on the tank, until you get the rack...

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yea I would agree with you, however this is my position. My local snake breeding buddy is moving and getting rid of his hole collection. So i am buying a 20 tub cb-70 rack from him with flexwatt and a helix 1000. This will make my life so much easier but right now, I am working with what I have. Is there a really cheap temporary therm out there somewhere? And do you think the 100 degrees would transfer threw the glass at 100 or would it be less?

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Originally Posted by zbyers7

yea I would agree with you, however this is my position. My local snake breeding buddy is moving and getting rid of his hole collection. So i am buying a 20 tub cb-70 rack from him with flexwatt and a helix 1000. This will make my life so much easier but right now, I am working with what I have. Is there a really cheap temporary therm out there somewhere? And do you think the 100 degrees would transfer threw the glass at 100 or would it be less?

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Glass gets crazy hot! So yes, I do think it would transfer, and since your'e using paper substrate it doesn't insulate it much either, so you should really just get a t-stat anyways, because it'll be better for you now.

Not to sound like the mean person here, but if you are absolutely set against buying a thermostat to take care of your ball python now, then maybe you shouldn't have gotten a ball python...