Freak heater accident, lost a lot of snakes...

:tears::weirdface:(
Last night around 10:30 I checked on everyone before going to bed.
Temps read at 77.
I set the room heater to 78 and went to bed.
Got up at 6 and go to turn on the lights/heat for my horned lizard....
temp reads 98....
I start fans, and start checking snakes.
We lost our rescue big reduce pattern bp, Lucille Ball
Another rescue bp.
My special rescue/needs mini dwarf albino cal king- Mini Me.
My nelson's milk snake, my pueblan milk snake, both yearlings.
and my horned lizard.
I was lucky to save another BP- Pete and a mexican black king- Monte Negra.
I got Pete into room temp water in the sink, and got the room down in temp as well. Pete is chilling with a cool water bottle in his tub.
My larger kings, and bull snake are fine.
But in total we lost 5....
My poor Lucille, and dear Mini Me...
I want to cry but I have my remaining snakes and asf's to ensure are safe and healthy...
so I am crying on the inside.
Montessa Python

I'm so sorry that happened:(
I always worry about that using a space heater here in good old New England. I'm glad you were able to save the others.

Sooo sorry to hear that. What Thermostats were you using? I'm shocked that 98 for that short amount of time would take the lives of BP's (the others I do not know enough about).

Again, so sorry for your loss. :(

Sorry for your loss..:tears:

That's terrible! I'm so sorry for your loss. I wish you could have saved more, but... *hug*

I'm so sorry, that would be a horrible thing to find! *Reminds self to set all herpstats back to 'beep loudly when the temps are wrong'*

Heater accidents seem to be a major cause of accidental death in reptiles. It's a shame these devices aren't more reliable, and you can never tell which one might fail next.

I, too, probably wouldn't have hooked up a second thermostat to a space heater, because many of them fail to function if you do. Thankfully my herpstats will yell if the temps go too high, even if the devices they control aren't the cause of it.

Most of products that can alert you to temperature changes aren't very cheap. I found this one:
http://www.temperaturealert.com/product_p/tm-std30.htm
I may be getting one of these in the future.

The Herpstats aren't cheap, either--the Herpstat II is the cheapest model that includes an audible alarm, and it's 200 bucks.

This is the cheapest temperature alarm device I found:
http://www.drillspot.com/products/44...perature_Alarm
At least it can alert if room temps rise too high, but it's not very versatile. At 37 bucks, it's not horribly expensive, though.

My biggest fear is that I won't HEAR the herpstats going off, because they are in another room, and if fans are going...you just can't hear the beeping. My roomate can hear them in HER room, but if she's not home, no one would. I may be asking my husband to rig something up so we can hear it in our room, or maybe get a baby monitor.

sorry for you losses. i had a similar thing happen to me.

I don't understand. Was it a room heater or a rack heater? while 98 degrees is high, it is NOT high enough to kill any snakes in a couple of hours..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

I don't understand. Was it a room heater or a rack heater? while 98 degrees is high, it is NOT high enough to kill any snakes in a couple of hours..

---

pretty sure it was a room heater.

We can't know whether the temperatures reached points even higher than that, as well. 98 is pretty critical if there is no way for the animal to escape it, and the animal has much lower temp requirements. It does depend on the species--ball pythons have a fairly narrow comfort zone, but I agree it's surprising to lose them to that temp so quickly.
My guess is that the temperatures were even higher than that for part of the time.

Sorry to hear about your loss. Shortly after getting my first BPs I heard of someone losing their whole collection due to heating issues. I only had 3 snakes, but knew I'd be getting more so the first thing I did was plan the heat out.

I have zone room heat (gas) at 78-80, then the racks are controled by double gang on/off t-stats set to 90-94F. I had my 1st double unit fail in the on position about 2 years back & the 2nd 1/2 did what it is designed to do, it shut the thing off. Snakes can handle 80 but continuous high temps will cook them.

If you're using a space heater, you may want to have a fan circulating the heat to prevent a thermal gradient from setting up in the room (especially important if you have high racks like I do). As long as your snakes have belly heat on a really good t-stat, room heat doesn't have to be to hot, at/above 72 will be fine. The temp alert devices mentioned in this thread are very good to have also.

Hope this may prove helpful to you & others who read your thread. No matter how good the equipment we use is, it can & will wear out/fail. So back-ups are necessary.

98 degrees is not high enough to kill your snakes

I'm sorry for your loss.This is a terrible thing to happen and in the interest of preventing it from happening to someone else I wonder if this heater was plugged into a separate thermostat (not one that is built into the heater) and if so what kind. As far as the 98 degree temp I wonder what kind of thermometer it was. Did it have a probe on the heat source or was it a stick on thermometer mounted to the side of the enclosure or what. My room heater started running too hot at the end of the winter and I had to throw it away. I will have to buy a new one for this winter. If you could give us the specifics of the equipment that you were using maybe others could benefit from the info.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

Freak accident for sure, were you able to get the actual temperature reading inside their cage when it happened? 90 degrees does not seem too extreme considering ball pythons can thrive in 80+ degrees..... who would've guessed....

Wow, sorry for your loss.

I hate how they don't make this stuff more reliable, that's what I fear about thermostats/uth

Bulbs, even though they certainly do break at times, don't overheat at least to my knowledge. But ofcourse, those dessicate so yeah.

Montessa, I'm so sorry. I am sure you are second guessing yourself and doing the "if only" thing to yourself. I hope that after the initial heartbreak lets up a little, you will be able to have a little peace about it. I would not have foreseen this either.

Best wishes to you and the rest of your snakes and thinking of you.

In what state are you located?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DarkComeSoon

98 degrees is not high enough to kill your snakes

---

Exactly... even a good bit higher then that shouldn't be enough to kill the snakes in a few hours when we are talking room temperatures. Please let me explain.

What I am saying is if the temps started at 77 degrees (and required a heater to stop temps from dropping further), how can a room heater possibly get hot enough to kill the snakes in 7 hours? Even if the temperature in the room got up to say 110 degrees (which would take several hours if possible at all in a 77 degree room), the temperatures inside the tubs would take a LONG time to get up to that room temperature...

An example of this is my ASF Rat tanks in the garage. My garage in the summer gets up to 95 + degrees during the day. It will stay at this temperature for a few hours. Even after the temperature has been that high for fa few hours, the temperature inside the tanks only has time to get upt to about 87 - 88 degrees... and that is with an open screen top!

To the OP I am sincerely sorry for your loss, I am just trying to understand it so we can all benefit from it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dsirkle

If you could give us the specifics of the equipment that you were using maybe others could benefit from the info.

---

I'm sorry to hear this :tears:, but I also agree that any info you can provide may help others prevent this. I am also curious as to the type of heater you were using and the size of the room they were in. This is definitely going to make me re-think my winterization plans...


Rob

WOW!...I am so sorry for your loss. Any idea what cuased the malfunction?

I will get the name brand of the heater when I get home, as I am at work now.
IT was a large room heater with an internal thermostat. You can set the lower temp to turn on the heater when it gets down to that temp, the the upper limiter to turn it off when it hits that temp.
The room was a 9x12 rounded ceiling room with a very LOW ceiling 6.5 feet at the highest point, with hard wood floors, packed with books and book shelves. The snakes were mostly in tubs, with two king snakes in large tanks w/ screen tops. All the snakes and asf's were on wire rack shelves.
The ones I lost were on the top shelves, closest to the ceiling.
The room was at AT LEAST 98 degrees for I would think 6 hours, no fan except the force from the heater, which was large nearly 2 1/2 feet tall.
The temp limiter must have burnt out, it is the only thing I can think of.
My tarantulas were on lower shelves and survived, and the one bp that was on a lower (waist high) shelf survived.
my rats, larger colubrids, t's and one bp survived due to being on the lower shelves where the heat didn't rise.
I started fans immediately and within half an hour to 45 mins, the temp had gone down to 82, I have kept the fans on, and will go home and check them during lunch.
My two larger kings were in their water bowls....And my black mexican king is in the middle of shedding, i soaked her in room temp water in the bathroom for a bit too, and the surviving bp.
I lost Tarantulas once to an over heating which is why I switched to a (I thought) better, more reliable room heater to keep the room at 78-80 degrees...
I think the room size and shortness of ceiling had to do with the heat build up near the top which cooked the snakes....
I want to cry, but am just numb right now... I have had lucille for a few years now and losing her was hard...

Oh no that's terrible! I almost had a catastrophe like that happen to me! Luckily a WEEK before a friend of mine told me to buy a dimmer just in case something weird happened with my thermostat. A week later I checked on the snakes and my thermostat was melted! The dimmer must have overloaded and shut everything off. I was so lucky! I've still got that $10 piece of equipment safe guarding my snakes!

thats the same thing that happend to my heater. from now on, i am only going to use them with another thermostat connected to them.

again sorry for you loss.

Your Spiders survived and the snakes did not.

That is odd to me.

Spiders usually are the ones to go first in HOT temp spikes.

Are you sure it was the Heater that killed the snakes?

I am thinking on the same page as Mike, that 98 is NOT that hot.

Even if the whole room was 98....

Patrick,
The spiders I have are more heat loving types...
And they were on a lower shelf. My house is shaped like a quansit hut. With very low ceilings. The snakes I lost were on the upper shelves. Those were the only ones I lost.
I find it odd too. I have low rounded ceilings and lost three small young colubrids and two larger bp's.
I am assuming that the temps were highest up there, since heat rises, and that being in probably 100 degrees plus... for several hours is what killed them.
Like a dog or other creature in a car on a hot day.
I can only blame myself for this, say several prayers for having some live. Keep them healthy and try my darnedest to make sure it never happens again.

Sorry to hear all that.

So sorry for your losses. :(

I'm sorry for your loss. Something we can all learn from.

So sorry to hear about this. :( This thread may possibly save the life of a snake or two, so for that I thank you.

Sounds like the ambient temp was 98+ hot sides must have been much higher.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Isis

Oh no that's terrible! I almost had a catastrophe like that happen to me! Luckily a WEEK before a friend of mine told me to buy a dimmer just in case something weird happened with my thermostat. A week later I checked on the snakes and my thermostat was melted! The dimmer must have overloaded and shut everything off. I was so lucky! I've still got that $10 piece of equipment safe guarding my snakes!

---

I too have mine on a dimmer for back up! Sorry for the loss! :tears:

Very sad.

To those saying you put a tstat on your space heaters, where are you placing the probe?

awww Im really sorry to hear about the loss of some of your snakes. heating failure is something we all fear :(

It was a Lasko ceramic core heater, with a digital readout, remote, and internal thermostat.
I just checked it, to see if it would work...I set it to 74, and it seemed to run for a while..
I had the door open and a fan running just in case. I checked it some 7 mins later. It read 78 degrees... 4 higher than it should, It did turn itself off as its programed to.
BUT it I think should not have shut off at 78 vs 74.. it may have a differential programmed into it.. but I won't risk that...
Just thought I would let you know.

Did the unit have a warranty?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jenn

Sounds like the ambient temp was 98+ hot sides must have been much higher.

---

If the hot side was set right, it wouldn't have been any hotter (since it should have been set at the max around 94 degrees.

I still just don't see how it is possible even at extreme room temperatures to have killed the snakes in just 7 hours when the starting point was 77 degrees. For arguments sake, even if the room near the ceiling got up to 120 degrees after a couple hours (And this is EXTREMELY unlikely in such a short period of time in a room that REQUIRED a heater to stay above 77 degrees) the temps inside the tubs would still be at least 10 to 20 degrees less then that for several hours after the room reached that high point temperature.... And it must have only been at that high temperature for a very short period of time to be able to have time to cool back down to 98 degrees.

Again, to the OP please do not take offense to my questions. I am just trying to pick apart what happened as much as possible so we can all learn from it. Again, I am terribly sorry for your losses.

Sorry to hear of your losses. Losing an animal, much less multiple animals must be a terrible feeling.

Mike, I think you vastly underestimate how quickly a small room can heat up with a space heater running constantly. I have used space heaters, and it would take perhaps an hour, max, for one to raise the temperatures in a room to maximum. Since the bins are already warm, they only have to rise 20 degrees to become deadly. With the heat collecting near the ceiling, it's easy to imagine temperatures well over 100 for many hours. People normally sleep for 8 hours a night (or should). Even if you assume another hour for the temps in the bins themselves to rise, they still have 4 to 6 hours at maximum temperatures. That is more than enough time--as seems very clear, since the animals did in fact perish from the heat.

I wonder how much a good sized water bowl would have helped? The abmient room temps would take longer to heat up the water. The snake could get in the water to cool down. This should give then a little more time I would think? Maybe??

it's never easy to lose a pet. sorry.

So sorry to hear this... :hug: