Temperature gradient problems

Having some trouble with my temperature in my ball pythons terrarium. He is 5 months old, I have him in a 20 gallon long glass tank with a mesh top, a heat mat on one end and a 50 w red lamp above, a hide on both sides and a few fake plants and branches. I’ve been using a laser thermometer and I’m having trouble with my temps. On the hot side he has the mat on keeping it between 86°F and 92°F, but on the cool side it drops to 72 which is way too low. I live in northeast USA so it’s generally very cool. I’ve tried moving the lamp to the middle of his terrarium to try and let the temperature gradually change so now it’s good on the hot side, between 80 and 86°F in the middle but his cool side drops Down to 72 and I just can’t figure out how to get it up without putting the lamp all the way on the cool side which doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s like two extremes hot to cool instead of a gradual change. Any idea how to smooth out the temperature evenly?

I use twenty longs in a cold climate myself. I put heavy acrylic across more then two thirds of the top of my tanks. And use an infrared 75 watt bulb on a dimmmer for my only heat source. I have no trouble keeping a 88/90 hot spot and a 82/80 cool end. Sometimes you have to cover over most the top and add insulation to the outside when dealing with tanks. I’m sure others will chime in. Some even get small space heaters to help boost the rooms temperature. Good luck.

You can try insulating your tank as Sonny suggested. Could also try a 75 watt infrared bulb but on a dimmer. This is also what I use to supplement my heat mats.

INSULATION. Glass is a terrible insulator and when I used an aquarium, I wrapped most of it on metallic bubble wrap insulation and covered the top. It helps to keep the ambient heat in. The screen top is the worst, so even just covering the screen will help.

My personal suggestion is to ditch the red light, and any other lights, and use a ceramic heat emitter instead. They do not kill humidity as bad. You can use a dimmer with the CHE so you can turn it down and adjust as needed. You could insulate like others mentioned to help trap some of the heat on the cool side. I just do want to verify that you have the heat mat on a thermostat? If not, you'll need one ASAP before a burn happens.

I have a 20 gallon long with a 100 watt CHE and the warm side is easy to maintain at 90 degrees but the cool side drops to 72-73 degrees no matter what I do. I have acrylic over 2/3 of the top but no insulation.

I thought about insulating the tank but I’m tired of dealing with heat and humidity issues all together. I ordered a PVC enclosure and a radiant heat panel.

Insulation would get you where you need to be if you want to keep the tank.

I used heat tape to cover the screen top of my tank, leaving a few holes for the che and plant light to sit on. This combined with some plexiglass attached to the underside of the screen top helped to keep humidity and heat inside the tank well.

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