Help Please

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Originally Posted by Kinra

I would switch to a UTH with a thermostat/dimmer and put your water bowel at least partial on top of it. Lamps kill humidity even if you put the water bowel directly under them.

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+1 :gj: UTH with a thermostat....

Ok thanks for the help everyone, I really hope she'll be ok :(

She will be fine, stuck shed can't cause too many problems, it's more of an annoyance. Just try soaking for like 20 or 30 minutes and see how that works. She could probably remove it herself after a long soak....then feed....then worry about changing the husbandry :) Don't worry.

Thanks. I love it here, everyone is so helpful!

So I bought a UTH today. It has solved my humidity problem, but unfortunately the temperature hasn't gotten higher than 84 degrees. So now I'm not sure what to do.

How are you measuring the temps and where are you measuring them? A UTH will give you a hot spot on the surface of the cage but does nothing for the ambient temps. But you do need to make sure the UTH is being controlled by a thermostat or a dimmer to make sure it isn't getting hot enough to burn the snake.

If you're not already using one, I would recommend getting a digital thermometer with a probe. Put the probe directly on the glass over the hot spot, under the substrate. You may want to glue it down with a dab of hot glue so it doesn't move. That is the temp you should be measuring. If you're using the little sticky dial thermometers, they can be highly inaccurate, not to mention that they are generally stuck up high in the tank and will only read your ambient temps, not the hot spot...

EDIT: Someone will be along shortly to tell you to get a temp gun instead of a digital thermometer. Personal preference IMO, but just make sure you have something more reliable than a cheapo analog dial stuck up high in the tank. You need to be measuring the hottest temperature your snake could be exposed to...

Ok so i stuck the digital probe on the glass and yes its much hotter there. What temperature is too hot, because witht he substrate on top of that its obviously not as hot as the glass itself.

I'm not an expert on RTB husbandry, but I recall the temp range being about 5 degrees cooler than a BP. So, shoot for mid to upper 80s for the hot side... Someone may come along and correct me though...

Ok, I will bite and be "that guy", lol. As stated in my first post in this thread, I keep the hotspot at about 92 F as measured on top of the substrate directly above the UTH using an infrared temp gun. The heat pad should cover an area of about 1/3 of the enclosure off to one side to provide the proper temp gradient. Ambient air temps on cool side 78-80ish and humidity between 60-75% would be ideal. I like to keep all wires and probes out of the enclosure, so the temp gun for hot spot temps paired with the digital thermometer/hygrometer for the cool side works well. I would recommend using only a very thin layer of substrate. You can use reptibark or cypress if it is spread thin, but I just use plain folded newspaper. It may not be as pleasing to look at, but it does well in my tubs. Now that you have switched to an UTH with a thermostat, you can cover most of the screen top with something to keep in more heat and humidity while making small holes (about 1 inch) in each of the 4 corners for ventilation. You can then tweak it once you see what the humidity and ambient temps are doing.

I think it is important to mention that proper humidity does not mean keeping the whole enclosure wet, and I tweak things so that I do not have to mist at all. A wet enclosure and condensation can lead to more severe health problems down the road due to more bacteria forming and possibly mold. All the humidity in my enclosures is provided by the proper heat and evaporation from the water bowl. In time, you will get the right airflow and humidity balance :gj:

Hope that helps a bit.

Ok, thanks to everyone for the help, I really appreciate it. Still no sign of the old skin coming off, but I've soaked her once a day for 2 days now so hopefully it'll come off soon!