Substrate not warm enough?

I have a 10 gallon tank and a uth by zoo med made for 10-20 gallon tanks plugged into ipower thermostat set to 91 degrees F. I can feel that it is at 91 when I feel glass but the top of my substrate is only at 79f. It has been only 45 minutes should I be worried?

The surface of the glass is what you should be concerned with. A UTH will never heat the substrate to 90. If it does, the actual bottom of the tank will be extremely hot and burn your snake. Aim for 90 on the glass surface.


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Animal can and will burrow. Temps are from the hottest surface you animal can touch.
Plenty of posts here on how to correctly set up an enclosure.
The search bar is your friend.

Hopefully you have or can get a digital temp gun to take the surface temps .. 10 dollars off eBay or whatever https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...88609558b.jpeg




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Originally Posted by Rdegs

I have a 10 gallon tank and a uth by zoo med made for 10-20 gallon tanks plugged into ipower thermostat set to 91 degrees F. I can feel that it is at 91 when I feel glass but the top of my substrate is only at 79f. It has been only 45 minutes should I be worried?

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Sometimes they take a bit to warm up.

Unless you're using a temp gun, or at at least a probed thermometer those temps must be jyst a guess.
There's no way we can "feel" temperature with any degree of accuracy.

Also, it's important to focus on the actual surface temp and not the substrate temp. Snakes burrow, push substrate around, etc...and will end up laying directly on the surface.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rdegs

I have a 10 gallon tank and a uth by zoo med made for 10-20 gallon tanks plugged into ipower thermostat set to 91 degrees F. I can feel that it is at 91 when I feel glass but the top of my substrate is only at 79f. It has been only 45 minutes should I be worried?

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I believe zoo med suggest 6 to 8 hours or overnight for substrate to reach temp from what I vaguely remember. I had a 50 gallon Exo Terra tank with a 24 watt UTH set to 90* My substrate would be around 88* but it took it thru out the night to reach it. So you might give it some time and periodically check on it. Also check the depthness of your substrate could be to deep. But don’t go above 92* so if your snake burrows it has a less chance of cooking itself.

Don't have the substrate to deep. 1/2 to 2/3 of an inch is enough.

Remember that even small BP's are relatively heavy bodied snakes. By the time they settle on the hot spot and shimmy themselves into place, they are usually far closer to the heat then you think. Some getting almost right on top of the heat source. If they want to be warmer they will get even closer to it, pushing the substrate aside.

If you try to heat the substrate to 90 and your source is at 95 or even higher you risk injury to the snake.

So what I’m getting is it doesn’t matter much about the substrate temp mainly the temp on the glass directly over hot spot. I have a temp gun and the glass where the hot spot is sitting at 90f I was just thinking the substrate should be at least close to that temp.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rdegs

So what I’m getting is it doesn’t matter much about the substrate temp mainly the temp on the glass directly over hot spot. I have a temp gun and the glass where the hot spot is sitting at 90f I was just thinking the substrate should be at least close to that temp.

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You just need to make sure the glass temp doesn’t get to hot to burn or cook your snake in the event it burrows down to the glass 90 to 91 degrees is ok. Now the substrate over the hot spot may take 24 hours to get up close to temp. I would measure the substrates temp every couple of hours to see the temp increase.


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You've got to remember the snake will compress the substrate and push it much closer to the UTH. So by the time the snake is laying on it, the surface temp of the substrate will be different then taking it without anything pushing down on it.

The snakes body will also help to trap that heat.