Paper towel substrate.

Had my snake for three days trying to make it as happy as possible. I'm using paper towels as substrate (as suggested by the guy at the pet store) after reading over many forums I think the guy at the pet store may not know as much as I expected him to.
1. Are paper towels not a good idea? I'm having some humidity issues too.
2. I have a glass aquarium with a screen top and don't know if the UTH is keeping the temp in the enclosure at the right reading. Where should I place the digital thermometer? until I get the temp gun of course.

I've used paper towel for 10 years! There's nothing wrong with paper towel, I also use a 60 gallon glass aqarium I put two wet hand towels over half the top of the lid to keep the humidity up in the cage. Rewet them about every two days.

I use Scotts shop towels (the blue ones) and they are great. Easy absorption and easy clean. I have wood enclosures for my Boas and have a hard time keeping the humidity up. The paper towels don't pull away as much humidity as the aspen did.

Is your humidity too high? or to low?

What type of thermometer? Does it have probes? I hot glue the probe down right to the surface above the area with the heating pad and the other probe to the cool side. You need to know how hot that is because your snake can't get off his belly when he's uncomfortable.
-Make sure you don't use tape!!!

Do you have a dimmer on the UTH? They are cheep (like $10.00 range) and are important.

Feel free to ask all the questions you want. It may help for people to see a picture of your setup to offer suggestions on the humidity issues. We'd love to see a picture of your snake too:)

Papertowels are fine. They do dry out quickly though. You could try to switch to Cyprus or Aspen shavings to help keep humidity. To help keep humidity in, cover the rest of the screen with foil tape, plexiglas, or even a dry towel. I'm not a fan of the wet towel thing. When I tried it back when I was using tanks, all it did was make it humid in the room and not the tank. Considering balls are at the floor of the tank, and hot humid air will rise I never found it helped my ball. I'm a spraying person. I mist the tubs 1x daily and that does it for the whole day. If you cover the screen and mist I think you'll have a less hard time keeping humidity.

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Do you have anything regulating the uth? Without a dimmer or thermostat they will get very hot and will burn your snake. When I first started my tank I used a lamp dimmer from home depot but I soon invested in a cheap thermostat.

You don't want damp or wet badding, that can lead to skin infections. Humidity is always a challenge if you use a glass tank with a screen top. I use racks, but I would actually recommend people simply use a repti-fogger if they're using a tank with a screen top. It would be a lot less fuss.

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Originally Posted by Cendalla

I use Scotts shop towels (the blue ones) and they are great.

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I actually use these too and they are great! Not that expenisive. I mist all my snakes daily to help with humidity but I have never had a problem with them.

I find the blue paper towels hold moisture better thus improving humidity. I however use them in a rack system.

Dont know why but I just cant stand using shavings in a rack.

I use to have humidity issues until I switched to aspen shavings. I have a rack system and I think it works great, and I do not keep the aspen wet. I just have large water bowls and its keeps my humidty at around 60%

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rat160

I actually use these too and they are great! Not that expenisive. I mist all my snakes daily to help with humidity but I have never had a problem with them.

I find the blue paper towels hold moisture better thus improving humidity. I however use them in a rack system.

Dont know why but I just cant stand using shavings in a rack.

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I'm moving my rack to them too on the next cleaning day. ;)

I use paper towels for the neonates and have used for adults when I run out of whatever other substrate I'm using at the time. Works great, easy for cleanup, give it a spray once or twice, but I like to change it out every couple of days, mess or no mess, as it gets all ruffled(but that will always happen regardless, just my OCD, haha)