Trouble heating..

hello everyone!

apologies first off for any ignorance, i will be getting my first snake on saturday so i’m still learning. because i’m still learning this may come off as silly or dumb.

i have a 20 gallon long for my soon to be here baby boy with the recommended 10-20 gallon UTH heater. the thing is just not getting the temp to where it needs to be.. right on top of the heater the hot hide is at a 90 as it should be but everywhere else is holding steady at room temp. not only that i can only put a Tiny amount of bedding above it or the heat won’t permeate. not even a repticarpet comes through. i don’t want my boy being burned so that’s also a concern.

how can i fix this problem? should i upgrade to a 30-40 gallon UTH as i’ve read? replace the thing altogether but keep the same size? should i just go with a CHE instead? all help is vastly appreciated.

An undertank heater is not meant to raise ambient temps, it will only create a hot spot for belly heat and 90 is a high as you want to go with it. It is being controlled by a thermostat right? With a fish tank setup your options for raising ambient are pretty much adding a CHE (this will add new issues for keeping your humidity and airflow correct) or heating the room with a space heater (gets expensive fast for only one snake). Is this a hatchling bp? A twenty gallon might be too large to start out with as baby bps are often raised in small enclosed tubs and prefer to be very cramped and hidden. I think there's a sticky around for setting up aquariums to work for bps, maybe some helpful info in there.

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Originally Posted by GoingPostal

... I think there's a sticky around for setting up aquariums to work for bps, maybe some helpful info in there.

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I can take a hint-;)

This is the "sticky" but it was started about 8 years ago, so the initial pics have gone away. :(
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...-With-Pictures!

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Originally Posted by GoingPostal

An undertank heater is not meant to raise ambient temps, it will only create a hot spot for belly heat and 90 is a high as you want to go with it. It is being controlled by a thermostat right? With a fish tank setup your options for raising ambient are pretty much adding a CHE (this will add new issues for keeping your humidity and airflow correct) or heating the room with a space heater (gets expensive fast for only one snake). Is this a hatchling bp? A twenty gallon might be too large to start out with as baby bps are often raised in small enclosed tubs and prefer to be very cramped and hidden. I think there's a sticky around for setting up aquariums to work for bps, maybe some helpful info in there.

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i bit the bullet and bought myself a CHE. all the advice on youtube and even reptile shops mention just the UTH so until today i had no idea i needed a CHE for the ambient temperature. thank you for the advice!

may i ask how to prevent burns on my baby boy from the UTH? it seems to have issues permeating through the substrate so i put a Very thin layer and i’m worried he’ll wiggle and burn himself :(

Using an infrared gun, from inside the tank, take the temperature of the glass above the UTH. As long as it doesn’t get above 90, you should be ok.

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Originally Posted by goatasaurus

i bit the bullet and bought myself a CHE. all the advice on youtube and even reptile shops mention just the UTH so until today i had no idea i needed a CHE for the ambient temperature. thank you for the advice!

may i ask how to prevent burns on my baby boy from the UTH? it seems to have issues permeating through the substrate so i put a Very thin layer and i’m worried he’ll wiggle and burn himself :(

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You're correct that a thick layer of substrate will act as "insulation" that prevents (!) the heat from rising into your enclosure, so keep the substrate there on the thin side, as mentioned.

Next thing is that UTH must be regulated by thermostat, so that double-&-triple-checked temperature measurements over the UTH (inside, with substrate pushed away-in other words, where the snake might make contact) will never exceed 90*. This is best tested out for a week prior to the snake occupying the enclosure, so you aren't stressing your snake when you have to keep "invading" their space. It can take a few days for a UTH to get "up to speed"- ie. because the surrounding materials (such as a wood cabinet it's sitting on) start off at a colder room temperature, & gradually absorb some of the warmth as the UTH runs for days- thus, you need to make SURE it doesn't get too hot after a few days. Make sure you're taking the temps. accurately & have the t-stat probe in the right place.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

You're correct that a thick layer of substrate will act as "insulation" that prevents (!) the heat from rising into your enclosure, so keep the substrate there on the thin side, as mentioned.

Next thing is that UTH must be regulated by thermostat, so that double-&-triple-checked temperature measurements over the UTH (inside, with substrate pushed away-in other words, where the snake might make contact) will never exceed 90*. This is best tested out for a week prior to the snake occupying the enclosure, so you aren't stressing your snake when you have to keep "invading" their space. It can take a few days for a UTH to get "up to speed"- ie. because the surrounding materials (such as a wood cabinet it's sitting on) start off at a colder room temperature, & gradually absorb some of the warmth as the UTH runs for days- thus, you need to make SURE it doesn't get too hot after a few days. Make sure you're taking the temps. accurately & have the t-stat probe in the right place.

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thank you all so much i have been stressing for literal days trying to figure it out. you are all fantastic! i’ll be getting that tank ready soon enough!

Funny I was going to post a nearly identical thread. I have the same setup, 20L w UTH and thermostat. I have to turn the thermostat to 100* in order for the glass inside the tank to get to 90*. The hot hide is 84 and cool hide 76ish.
Ambient temps are 73* cold side and 77 warm.
Is the ambient temp a problem and if so, is the solution a CHE or am I ok because of the hide temps?
Don’t mean to hijack but I think we have the same problem and simultaneously can benefit from any help..

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Originally Posted by goatasaurus

may i ask how to prevent burns on my baby boy from the UTH? it seems to have issues permeating through the substrate so i put a Very thin layer and i’m worried he’ll wiggle and burn himself :(

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He will without a doubt move the substrate, that's why you want to take the temperature at the glass, and set your thermostat based on that and not what temp you're trying to get on top of the substrate. What I do is put no or very minimal substrate under the warm hide. When I kept my BP in a glass tank I actually semi-buried the warm hide to try to simulate a burrow, so the BP was sitting right on the glass above the UTH. My thermostat was set to keep that UTH right around 88-90 degrees, and as Bogerthopis said earlier, this ran for about a week before I ever put the snake in there so I could make sure my temperatures were where I wanted them.

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Originally Posted by SharkFan

Funny I was going to post a nearly identical thread. I have the same setup, 20L w UTH and thermostat. I have to turn the thermostat to 100* in order for the glass inside the tank to get to 90*. The hot hide is 84 and cool hide 76ish.
Ambient temps are 73* cold side and 77 warm.
Is the ambient temp a problem and if so, is the solution a CHE or am I ok because of the hide temps?
Don’t mean to hijack but I think we have the same problem and simultaneously can benefit from any help..

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Personally I think your ambient temperatures are too low, I prefer to run 77-78 on the cool side and somewhere in the mid 80s on the warm side, but that's just me. This is just my opinion and some other more experienced keepers may tell you different, but I think it may be worth looking into a CHE for your guy as well, just to help get that warm side up into the 80s. Just remember, as soon as you stick a CHE on a glass tank the humidity battle starts. This can be helped by doing some alterations to your lid though, and I found with a little trial and error, that glass set ups with CHEs and UTHs work fine for BPs.

Funny enough before I brought home my spotted python I did his quarantine set up almost identical to my BPs and felt like I had hit the lotto because I didn't have to play with my settings much before I brought the new snake home.