Heating with bulbs, forgoing UTH.

Hello all,

I am new to these forums but I am not new to snakes. I have garter snakes growing up, a red tail boa, and a kingsnake back in the day. With my red tail, I learned about the "belly heat" idea... but when setting up my enclosure for my new baby ball, my girlfriend and I decided to forgo the uth and stick with bulbs for the heat. My thought is, heat does not radiate from the ground in the wild, it comes from the sun which warms everything else up. So, I am going to go with that for now.

My question is, based on the fact that I have a 20 Gal glass aquarium, will 75 watts with an infrared bulb do the trick or should I bump the wattage a bit? I used the "rare black earth nocturnal" blah blah blah bulbs with my Red Tail and loved the light it threw, but Kas (the gf) wanted to go with infrared with this guy. I'm sure the temps will be about the same, right?

Ambient temperature in the room is 78*, tank is sitting on carpet, and the ceiling fan is rarely used in this room. Thanks for taking the time to look, and thanks in advance for your advice!

Blacklights tend to put out less heat than infrared bulbs watt per watt

I prefer infrared lamps because of this (power bill is less)

When using heat lamps I like to get a bulb one wattage incrment larger than I think I need then use a cheap thermostat (like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-MTPR.../dp/B000NZZG3S) or a lamp dimmer to regulate the amount of heat emitted.

The biggest drawback to using heat lamps is that they kill the humidity in the tank.

For you I would say that a 75 watt bulb will be more than enough but a 100 watt will give you some headroom. No matter what I suggest that you regulate the heat source.

Check out this thread: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...t-Thermometers

Well you need to know what the temperature of the substrate is while using that bulb. Do you have a probe thermometer?

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Originally Posted by jehicks87

Hello all,

I am new to these forums but I am not new to snakes. I have garter snakes growing up, a red tail boa, and a kingsnake back in the day. With my red tail, I learned about the "belly heat" idea... but when setting up my enclosure for my new baby ball, my girlfriend and I decided to forgo the uth and stick with bulbs for the heat. My thought is, heat does not radiate from the ground in the wild, it comes from the sun which warms everything else up. So, I am going to go with that for now.

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Either way works, but your ball python is nocturnal. Which means, the sun warms the ground, and then the ground warms your BP when it comes out at night. So, actually, heat does radiate from the ground in the wild. :rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Annarose15

Either way works, but your ball python is nocturnal. Which means, the sun warms the ground, and then the ground warms your BP when it comes out at night. So, actually, heat does radiate from the ground in the wild. :rolleyes:

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Hmmm... why the eyes rolling? The major type of heat given off by a substrate being in the sun all day is conductive heat, not radiant heat. ;) I normally wouldn't argue semantics, but meh.

Serpant Merchant, thanks for your info! I wasn't tracking the dip in humidity from a bulb... good to have a heads-up there. I figure some moss in the hidespots would help with maintaining humidity, in addition to a fabric covering over the lid. It was more or less what I used with my RTB and she never had an incomplete shed. Not once. :)

Andrew 21, I don't yet but it's on the short list! Do you have any favorites, or all they all kind of the same?

Pretty much everybody here likes the accurite thermometers from walmart. They are like 12 bucks. If you don't mind spending some money, i'd just skip it and get a infared thermometer.

This is the $12 Acu-Rite thermometer/hygrometer avaliable at Walmart. Basically you put the probe on the hot side then the box on the cool side and it tells you everything you need to know:

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...nt/photo-3.jpg

I use a CHE (same idea as it bulb) regulated with a Herpstat. I have a custom plywood enclosure that holds heat and humidity pretty well and well ventilated. I use cypress mulch for substrate and it balances the humidity sucking power of the CHE really well. I water once a week and it holds around 60%.

If you use a towel or even cut an acrylic sheet out that would help it a ton. Never had a bad shed and my girl is quite happy.

Hope that reassures any doubts you have. My surface basking spot is between 90-93 and cool is 78-80. The rooms ambient temp is 68-70.