Emergency!!

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Originally Posted by jadab123

What kind of ceramic heater did you have and what temp did you have it set at? I have a lasko ceramic space heater and I had it set at 83 (we were having a really cold spell that temperature kept the ambient temp in the enclosure at 80). Well one night I walked into the snake room to check on the snake and realized the thermostat on the heater read 76 and wasn't going up. So I put my hand against the heater only to find that it was blowing cold air. Turns out there is a built-in safety mechanism that causes the heating element to turn off if the internal mechanisms overheat. The remedy (according to the information manual) was to unplug the heater for at least 10 minutes, then plug it back in. Sure enough, that fixed my issue. Now I have the heater set at 78 and I have towels wrapped around my snake's enclosure to help insulate it. It has been almost a month and it hasn't overheated since then, and the ambient air temp inside the snake's enclosure hovers between 79-80.

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It's not a heater, it's like a lamp, with a bulb that emits heat but not light. I plugged it into the wall, only because the power strip I have doesn't have surge protection, it turns off if the power goes out. It then had to be reset. It was back down to 68 this morning so I took the foil off his tank lid and put new foil, shiny side down. And now we're at 82 ambient.

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Originally Posted by KMG

Just set it up as you had it with the che running as it was before it was turned off. Let it warm up on its own and not plugged into the wall unless that's how it was. The worst thing you could do is go from being too cold to too hot or even cause a burn.

Relax and make sure everything as it should be and you will be fine.

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The power strip it was plugged into shuts off and has to be reset if there is a power surge.

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Originally Posted by MontyAndMelissa

It's not a heater, it's like a lamp, with a bulb that emits heat but not light. I plugged it into the wall, only because the power strip I have doesn't have surge protection, it turns off if the power goes out. It then had to be reset. It was back down to 68 this morning so I took the foil off his tank lid and put new foil, shiny side down. And now we're at 82 ambient.

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Ah, ok, I must have misunderstood :). Glad you are able to resolve it though!

His temps are still a little unsteady, so I'm going today to get a regular heater for my room to raise the overall temperature of the room

Just an update, y'all. Picked up a regular space heater for my room (so toasty). Ambient has been at 85, and surface temps have been 91 and 82. He is eating, or trying to as far as I can tell. He struck the f/t rat as usual, but is taking a little longer than usual to start eating. He's just dragging it around the tank, then moves his mouth forward more, then drags. I am a little concerned. I'm leaving him alone for 30 minutes then I'll be back in to check on him.

Sometimes they will drag it around until they are comfortable and ready to eat. It happens sometimes but do what you did and leave him alone. He'll get it.