temp and humidity

Ok, picked up a 100w red bulb and covered the whole screen top with d tape. made a hole slightly larger than the lamp, and fired it up. After about an hour or so checked my temps....
The side under the bulb is holding at 80-no direct beam to create a hot spot since the whole bulb is red. Now it seems my intended hot side is a relatively cool side! Water dish in the middle- temp of water is 74. UTH under unlit side with a couple pieces of news paper under astro turf is keeping surface temp of 93 to 95.
Is there anything wrong with using the UTH side as my hot side with the ambient air temp of 70 to 77 (depending on how many times I keep taking the lid off to move things around) and ground temp in the 90"s?
Cool side then being under the red light at 80 to 85 with no UTH and a hide?
Or should I up the wattage on the bulb and raise all the temps 5 to 10 degrees?
Hmmmmmmm........
Oh on the plus side of things I found out that a well misted piece of driftwood is a great humidity tool :wink:

Pythagoras, do have ur screen top covered? I just got my 40 gallon breeder today and i also picked up a hydrometer so I'm gonna let it adjust and tell me what current humidity is before I start covering up my screen top.

Finally! All temps holding correctly and humidity is solid! Now that wasn't so hard...........

Congrats!

See - aquariums can work for snakes. Congrats!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andariel

Pythagoras, do have ur screen top covered? I just got my 40 gallon breeder today and i also picked up a hydrometer so I'm gonna let it adjust and tell me what current humidity is before I start covering up my screen top.

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Yes, I cover it with duct tape. I've tried other methods but this seemed the easiest for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by steelsack

Ok, picked up a 100w red bulb and covered the whole screen top with d tape. made a hole slightly larger than the lamp, and fired it up. After about an hour or so checked my temps....
The side under the bulb is holding at 80-no direct beam to create a hot spot since the whole bulb is red. Now it seems my intended hot side is a relatively cool side! Water dish in the middle- temp of water is 74. UTH under unlit side with a couple pieces of news paper under astro turf is keeping surface temp of 93 to 95.
Is there anything wrong with using the UTH side as my hot side with the ambient air temp of 70 to 77 (depending on how many times I keep taking the lid off to move things around) and ground temp in the 90"s?
Cool side then being under the red light at 80 to 85 with no UTH and a hide?
Or should I up the wattage on the bulb and raise all the temps 5 to 10 degrees?
Hmmmmmmm........
Oh on the plus side of things I found out that a well misted piece of driftwood is a great humidity tool :wink:

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Glad to hear everything's working out for you! Did you get your bp yet? Let us know how it goes... A couple more comments you may or may not care about... Your UTH should always go on the warm side, or it usually just works itself out so the warm side is the side with the UTH....you figured that one out already. Do you have your UTH attached to any kind of dimmer (rheostat?) Using a thin substrate that your bp may be able to find a way underneath scares me because if it comes in contact with the glass over the UTH it will burn him real good. Snakes will just sit there and let it burn the skin right off of em. If you do have it hooked up to a rheostat then good for you....if not, go ahead and lift up the lizard liner stuff and put your hand on the glass over the UTH....i dare you. A rheostat offers you much more flexibility in controlling the temperatures of your warm and cool sides....which in your case are pretty good, but I think they could be a little better.

Aim for a warm side temperature that is atleast 87 and never gets warmer than 91.

Yes, UTH's can make the glass mucho toasty! I found that out right away after purchasing it and setting it up. As a fix to the situation I found some real sticky double sided tape from a window plastic kit.....you know the stuff you stretch over your older windows in the house and then cure with a blow dryer....
The tape holds the turf to the glass pretty good, put it all along the perimeter, I don't think he'll get under it now.........
Have got the UTH holding the turf at 93......is that too hot? what is too hot anyway? would like to know for my own piece of mind
Thanks to all of you for giving advice and helping me get everything squared away
Am getting stoked........I pick up my BP on Friday (he's about almost 4 months old and is a great looking snake! course we all think that about our babies.........) :roll:

Oh, by the way.......they can't see red light, correct? The red bulb holds the temps fine and I was planning on leaving it on 24/7 and just using our day to day lights on in the room as well as the natural night and day action of our spinning planet to give light cycle...cool?

93 is perfect, and no, the red light doesn't bother them, although I cannot positively say that they cannot see it. Sounds like you are all set up and ready! Make sure and post some pics for us when you get your new critter!