Animal Plastics T8 humidity and heating issues - looking for advice

Hello!

I purchased a T8 from AP a couple of months ago, and I've been having some issues with the heat and humidity.

First of all, there are two snakes in the cage with a divider. For heating, I'm using the flexwatt thing that I could order with the cage, and I have it centered on the bottom and hooked up to a thermostat. I've had to experiment with the temps a little bit to get it to the right temperatures. But I'm worried since my snakes only seem to stay on the cool side. Back in their old containers, which were glass aquariums, I would see them in both hides.

The other problem that I'm having is that the cage is way too humid. My humidity gauge said that it's up towards 60-70%. My plan to fix this was just to drill some more holes in the side of the cage, but I just wanted to see if there was anything else that I could try first before doing that. I don't even know how I'd go about drilling holes in the cage.

Neither snake seems to be too stressed out as they both are eating and are willing to be handled. I was actually able to get one of them to switch over to frozen rats after I moved her into the new cage.

Temps - cool ~80F hot ~ 94F
Humidity - 60-70%
substrate - paper towels


Thanks for any help!

Everything sounds just fine to me. Do they use the hot side after eating? If not try lowering to 92 or 90. For humidity 60-70% is good but if you do want to lower to 50-60 maybe change substrate? What are they on now?

That's pretty high ambient humidity inside the enclosure but it shouldn't be an issue. I'm in the Southeast US and the ambient temps in my (4) T8s is 53-58%. I use aspen sani-chips for my kings and carpets, and I use shredded aspen for my heavier bodied bull snakes. I also agree with dialing the warm side temps down to 88-90F.

Nothing wrong with 60-70 humidity, my average is 63-67% and I add 10-12% for shed. I wouldnt drill any holes and would keep it how it is. What kind of humidity gauge are you using? You can do a salt test on it and make sure it's giving an accurate reading.

Is your thermostat probe in the slot on bottom of cage ap cuts for it? Since your using paper towels I would drop the thermostat temp until you have a temp of 88 inside cage under the paper towel, when the snakes lay on hot spot the weight of them will make it warmer for them.

You could always get a couple of 40w rhp from reptile basics. IMO rhp is the best heating for snake in cages and the fact they heat the cool side as well is a bonus if you live in a cooler house.

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Originally Posted by TurkeyPython

Everything sounds just fine to me. Do they use the hot side after eating? If not try lowering to 92 or 90. For humidity 60-70% is good but if you do want to lower to 50-60 maybe change substrate? What are they on now?

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No, they both go straight to the cool side. I've never seen them on side unless I just put them back in and they're exploring their cage to find a good spot. I thought the humidity was supposed to be around 40-50%, so I'm glad that's okay. They are currently on paper towels. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

That's pretty high ambient humidity inside the enclosure but it shouldn't be an issue. I'm in the Southeast US and the ambient temps in my (4) T8s is 53-58%. I use aspen sani-chips for my kings and carpets, and I use shredded aspen for my heavier bodied bull snakes. I also agree with dialing the warm side temps down to 88-90F.

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I thought the humidity was supposed to be around 40-50%, so I'm glad it isn't much of an issue. I would like to keep using paper towels cause they're really easy to clean, but I'm willing to switch if that's what they need. I'll also work on lowering the temp. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by chrid16371

Nothing wrong with 60-70 humidity, my average is 63-67% and I add 10-12% for shed. I wouldnt drill any holes and would keep it how it is. What kind of humidity gauge are you using? You can do a salt test on it and make sure it's giving an accurate reading.

Is your thermostat probe in the slot on bottom of cage ap cuts for it? Since your using paper towels I would drop the thermostat temp until you have a temp of 88 inside cage under the paper towel, when the snakes lay on hot spot the weight of them will make it warmer for them.

You could always get a couple of 40w rhp from reptile basics. IMO rhp is the best heating for snake in cages and the fact they heat the cool side as well is a bonus if you live in a cooler house.

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Well, I'm guessing it's probably giving an accurate reading, as it's really humid where I live. I was just worried cause I thought it was too high, but it looks like they should be fine. I'll definitely lower the temps, I didn't even think about it getting warmer from them just sitting on it. I did look a little bit in RHP, but I wasn't sure how I felt about them being installed in the cage. I guess I'll have to take another look. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by oliveair

Well, I'm guessing it's probably giving an accurate reading, as it's really humid where I live. I was just worried cause I thought it was too high, but it looks like they should be fine. I'll definitely lower the temps, I didn't even think about it getting warmer from them just sitting on it. I did look a little bit in RHP, but I wasn't sure how I felt about them being installed in the cage. I guess I'll have to take another look. Thanks!

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I run rhps in 3 setups and soon to be 5 once I switch some things around and IMO are the best heating device for cages. My house is 60-65 year round and my temps are 89-90 hot and cool 79-81. Without an rhp I would he running 2 heating devices in every cage which means 2 thermostats for every cage, had to do this for my first 2 snakes.

As far as being in the cage there's nothing to worry about. They have built in fail safes and depending on your thermostat it will also have one. Also you can set your hand on it without it being to hot that it burns, if you set it on there for awhile you probably would. A snake isn't going to be straight up and down and touch it long enough to get burned like it would with a uth. A bump here and there or a graze over it is not going to do any damage to your snake in anyway. The only thing is to make sure that it is mounted correctly so it's flat against the ceiling with no gaps so your snake can't crawl up between the ceiling and rhp, unless your T8 ceiling is sagging (which is highly unlikely) it will sit perfectly with no gaps.

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60-70% humidity is ok but I would personally try to shoot for the lower end of it. I keep all my snakes around 60ish humidity and bump it up to around 70% after they come out of blue. The only downside I see to high humidity is that combined with lack of airflow(compared to outdoors in the jungle) can be a breeding ground for molds, bacteria and all sorts of little critters if the cage isn't cleaned well often.