Do ball pythons really need an UTH?

Also , i thought that putting the uth under a water bowl , like he says hes doing , will make bacteria grow alot faster ...


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Do they need a UTH? No however it is often more efficient as heat travels up and there is less heat loss this way, not the case with heat lamp and so forth.

Do they need additional heat at all? No, not if you keep them in a controlled room in the mid 80's

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Originally Posted by meganmarkita15

Also , i thought that putting the uth under a water bowl , like he says hes doing , will make bacteria grow alot faster ...


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Putting a water bowl over where your uth sits helps humidity. If it promoted harmful bacteria growth I don't think it would be recommended as much as it is.

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Okay , thats just what i thought i read somewheres :)


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The tank is already 80-90 degrees with moderately high humidity mostly kept in the dark.. its already a habitat thats basically perfect for bacteria.. this is why you change your substrate out and clean everything so often. As far as the water bowl itself being over the UTH, it wont hurt anything. The water will evaporate in a couple of days anyway so there will be fresh water in the tank before anything in the water becomes dangerous.

Tomorrow I'll look into getting an infrared thermometer, and a probe thermometer for the UTH and the rest of the levels. The pad is under the tank, which is raised from the table and is then covered by an inch of the substrate with half of the water bowl on top. To anyone commenting on the humidity, I know it's extremely hard to keep that at a right level, But because he's had so much problem with past living conditions I want to maintain the humidity around 60-70 and then raise it for a shed, so he has no issues. I'm also spraying his cage down about three or two times a day to keep it level. Which I know he doesn't mind because he always comes out to say hello when I spray. The analogs are sitting on top of the substrate. But the rest of my husbandry is fine from everything that I've read over the past two months. I knew heating and humidity would be questionable for me because I know everyone's ways are different. I replaced the substrate about a month ago, and will keep doing so. But yes, tomorrow I'll be getting the infrared and probes for his tank. Thank you so much to everyone who responded

Can I just quickly recommend doing the salt test on your Hygrometers. No matter what hygrometer you have, cheap or expensive, digital or analog, they are almost always incorrect. With a salt test (putting salt with a bit of water in a bottle cap placed in a zip lock bag with your hygrometer in with it should make the hygrometer read 75% humidity after a few hours) you will know exactly how right or wrong your hygrometer is
I've seen it to many times where people say "my viv is soaking wet but I can't get about 50% humidity" . Everyone should check their hygrometers work as soon as they buy them so they know if their going to be off and by how much.

You haven't mentioned if you have a thermostat or dimmer to regulate your heat source. A thermostat or other regulating device to give your snake the proper temp and not burn your snake. If you don't have a thermostat or something else to regulate the uth you must unplug it until you do. It doesn't matter how many inches of substrate you put in your snake will eventually burrow down into it and will get burned. Again unplug if your not regulating with a thermostat or dimmer.

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Right, Before I made the original post, I unplugged the UTH because I realized that It should be monitored for heat. Last night I found an infrared thermometer and had been keeping an eye on the temps around his tank, So far they look good, and surprisingly the analogs were pretty accurate, but I know that it's better to use the probes to get the best reading. As mentioned above in my last post, I purchased a probe thermometer for the UTH, and a hygrometer and thermometer with probes for the rest of the tank, and I will continue to use the infrared on top of everything else.

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Originally Posted by Holly_Berry

Right, Before I made the original post, I unplugged the UTH because I realized that It should be monitored for heat. Last night I found an infrared thermometer and had been keeping an eye on the temps around his tank, So far they look good, and surprisingly the analogs were pretty accurate, but I know that it's better to use the probes to get the best reading. As mentioned above in my last post, I purchased a probe thermometer for the UTH, and a hygrometer and thermometer with probes for the rest of the tank, and I will continue to use the infrared on top of everything else.

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Chrid is right - if you don't have a thermostat plugged into the UTH your snake is still at risk of a burn... are you or have you purchased a thermoSTAT because this is important...I don't know what you mean by a probe thermometer...but in any case with a UTH you must get a thermostat.