Question on heating enclosure properly

Hi everyone:

I have a question about properly maintaining my temperature on the hot side of my ball pythons enclosure, I guess I am a bit confused.

I currently have a 20 gallon glass aquarium. I have a UTH stuck under the glass on the hot side. I also have a thermostat probe taped to the glass inside the tank right over the heat pad and the thermostat is set for 90 degrees. Is this the proper way of setting this up? And if so, if the temperature of the UTH is at 90 degrees, will this be warm enough being I have about 1.5 inches of substrate (coconut husk) on top? My concern if that at the surface, where my snake will be lying in his hide will be less than 90 degrees due to the substrate seperating him from the actual bottom of the glass where it is 90 degrees?

I hope this makes sense, I just want to make sure I am doing things properly :)
I am having no trouble keeping the humidity at the proper level by covering 2/3 of the screen top with a damp towel and misting, but the temp is my main concern at the moment. Thanks for any guidance anyone can provide.

Michael
Michael

Most likely it will be a little cool most care sheets suggest 90 to 95 so you could probably bump it up to 95 and be around 91-92 at the surface would be my guess. However you need a thermometer they aren't expensive and is a must. What if your thermostat gets messed up and suddenly spikes the UTH to 110 how would you know? also you shouldn't put tape in an enclosure if it gets stuck to your snake it can be extremely harmful to it. Try using something like hot glue to hold it down

Thanks for the reply. I do have a thermometer (as well as a thermostat), I'll bump up the temp a bit like you suggested. Sorry, I always get the two mixed up. I will hot glue it instead of using tape though, I never thought about that until you mentioned it. Thanks for the reply I really appreciate it :)

in africa the day time temps spike over 100 and dip at night into the low 80s to high 70s most of the year. therefore these animals are used to a temp flucuation. yes the ideal body temp is 89 degrees. if you have any doubt your hot side isnt hot enough you can bump the pad up. with a substrate over the pad side you can go pretty much as high as that pad will go. if your snake feels its too hot he will go to the cool side. if you see him hangin out on the cool side alot then drop the temp a few degrees till you see him hangin on the hot side a little more. sometimes you can overthink with all the different caresheets out there. i have always kept all my thermostats on all of my racks at 89 degrees to 90 degrees and night drop 10 degrees during the cooling season for breeding. about the only time you dont want the temps to flucuate more then a couple degrees is during incubation. remeber that ball pythons are a species of snakes that can regulate their body temps. they do this when they maturnally incubate.

The probe for the thermoSTAT should be taped (foil tape) to the UTH OUTside the tank. The probe for the thermoMETER should be INside the tank right over the UTH under the substrate. :D Best ways to attach are velcro or hot glue.

Oh, and make sure your tank is covered and insulated on back and both sides for heat regulation and security (of the snake) and that your screen top is covered with either the foil treatment or plexi for humidity retention. :)

They way you describe is fine personally I do not like to use tape inside the enclosure and usually opt for hot melt glue the probe must not move. There are some that as Argentra mentioned will place the probe outside the enclosure but if you have variable room temps this will often generate greatly variable interior temps.

You don't need so much substrate I use just enough on the hot side to absorb any urine say less than 1/2 an inch the temp on the glass is about the same as the substrate temps.

I have never heard of a Royal python maintaining a core temp much beyond 86º. It is understood that temps too high and the snake can not digest food same for too cold. The problem is with higher temps that thermometers typically used in the hobby are not very accurate and often a degree or two off of correct. When higher temps are use say 94 if things are incorrect on the high side it could be getting close to too warm to digest. I usually will not allow my snakes access to temps over 92ºF at any place inside the enclosure.

if you need all the answers about the heat encloses or another problem then be friend of google search engine. 100% you will get all your answers

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Originally Posted by Aalina

if you need all the answers about the heat encloses or another problem then be friend of google search engine. 100% you will get all your answers

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Thanks but I am well aware of Google. I posted this here because I wanted opinions of those who had experience with BP and wanted their opinions. Thanks for your non productive post though, never was aware of Google until you educated me