shedding and temp

n0

Now that I put the warmer light on, he is out under where the light is. This is first time I have seen him out in days.

Three weeks is not a long time to go without a shed. Most babies only shed every 4-6 weeks from all the info that i have gathered. You do NEED to get your temps right though, that is one of, if not THE most important things in the world for your snake!

n0

Usually the eyes go blue, and then oddly enough, they clear up just before the shedding takes place. This can actually make it seem like your snake has shed, and the skin has vanished, when in fact they haven't shed yet! The eyes will clear before shedding, but the skin will still look ugly and dull, so you know that he has not shed yet.
I would concentrate on your humidity. When my snakes are about to shed, I mist the cage with hot water as often as needed, to maintain a constant humidity reading of 90%. You may need to cover a screen top in plastic, if you have that kind of top on your cage.
They do need a period of darkness though, which is why you should not leave the daylight bulb on all night. You could supplement the heat at night by adding an undertank heater if you don't have one already. If you do, just measure the temperature on the substrate, above the heater, and that's the really important temp, not necessarily the air temperature.
I know my posts are long! I just hope that they are useful to you. :)

Ditto what Ginevive said: stop stressing the poor little thing out by making it live in light 24 hours a day! If the eyes of the snake are just now turning cloudy, you could be in for a shed anywhere from 2 to 7 or so days from now, most likely around 4 days. Now is the time to bump up the humidity and stop using lightbulbs in his visible spectrum 24 hours a day. I bought a 75-watt blacklight bulb at WalMart for like $6 for nighttime gecko viewing and it definitely creates a warm spot, so if you insist on not providing belly heat to to the little guy, that should be one option you could consider.

n0

Ball pythons don't really need a photo-period (unless you are getting a pair to breed) and you could just go get a red bulb to keep on all the time. Some people also stress that they need belly heat and can be heated by a UTH (human heat pad works great) alone, w/o a basking lamp.

I agree, you really need to use another heat source besides light bulbs. IMO it is not the most reliable source, but then again, I'm kinda green, so what do I know? :roll:

What's with the changing of all tuffy's messages to "n0"?

Hmm, that's strange. Tuff seemed offended by the advice, maybe that's why....you got me :?

We've had that happen once before. I'd really like to see the ability for users to edit their own posts restricted to within 5 or 10 minutes of when the post was actually made. Doing this kills some of the educational value for lurkers and n00bs.

I agree. I've edited some of mine, but it's usually right after I send and for a typo, not to change the content.

Hopefully she comes back this forum helps lots of people from beginners to experts. Some people can't take criticism but the point is that we are not criticizing anyone. They ask a question and get upset when we answer. I dont get it.

IOf anyone other than the first person that responded to my post, had READ it. I was not asking for advice on how to heat my tank. I asked, do you think the fact that my lightbulb for nighttime was not working correctly caused my bp not to shed. It was not HOW do I heat my tank. I know how to heat my tank, I know the proper temperatures. I asked if the fact the heat was lowered do to a faulty bulb could have caused him not to shed. I also stated that I had to leave the daylight bulb on temperarily until I got another night time bulb this weekend.
Instead I got answers telling me that I need to raise my temperatures, which I stated in my post that the bulb caused incorrect temps and I had already raised the temps, and that I should not leave my daylightbulb on 24 hours. I had also stated that I needed to leave the daylight bulb on 24 hours because the nighttime bulb did not work and I was going to get one this weekend.
So, my anger is that no one other than first poster even attempted answering my post, they spat out some basic answer. If you are going to help people read what they post or don't answer. Now I have wasted my time asking a question here that I had to repost elsewhere to get an actual answer to my question, instead of a basic husbandry answer. I am also wasting my time, for the last time by letting you guys know that it was not your critism that angered me, it was the fact you critisized me about something that I had no control over and still did not get an answer to my question.

By the way, I changed my post due to the fact if no ones reading them why leave them here.

We dont intend to critisize anyone. Sometimes forums tend to go off in a completely different direction. But if you would have left your posts someone else could have come along and answered your quetions. From what i see people are telling you their personal experiences with their own critters. If only you could have left your posts my reply would have been to go get a heating pad and turn out the light. None of us here would ever do any thing to offend anyone. You can look at all of the posts in the past and all you will find is people giving advice. I even ask for advice. No one knows everything so its up to you to read the replies and take the appropriate action. We would never give anyone bad advice this is immoral and could ultimately injure or make your snake sick. So from what i see all the people here gave thier knowledge. Elevatethis made his post and you got impatient with everyone. If you would have waited some answers would have come along.

Tuffy, you are welcome to ask for input here just as the rest of us are (and do), but you should do so with the understanding that we're really here more for the reptiles than the keepers. What I mean by that is that if someone came in here and said, "I got a hatchling ball python in a 55 gallon tank and I need to know the best way to heat it," he's most likely going to get at least 3 or 4 responses suggesting he put the snake in a smaller enclosure to avoid stressing it.

This is analogous to what happened here. You asked about what you percieved the problem to be, but a few experienced keepers realized that the real problem was something different from what you thought it was. This is because we are concerned for your animal and want to help you provide it with an optimal environment, not because we're not reading your question or because we're trying to tick you off.

Having a display of temper and removing the content of your posts doesn't help you, your snake, or anyone who comes along and reads this thread. What you could have done instead was post something along the lines of, "I didn't realize how stressful that was to my snake. I am fixing it right away. I'd still like to know, though, whether the lower temperature in his tank might have affected his shed," or something along those lines, and would likely have gotten clear responses to that issue. You may not have noticed yet, but we as a community place a high value on helping other reptile keepers even if one of us ends up looking a bit green in the process. Usually our members stick around, learn some stuff, and help others, and it would be great if you did that, too.

Once again I will type that I KNEW THAT I NEEDED TO GET DIFFERNET HEATING SUPPLY, THAT THE ONE I HAD WAS FAULTY!!!! I knew that the temps were wrong and how to fix them my question was could it have caused him to not shed with his temps being wrong for two days? And even after posting why I was angry I still got the same answer to a question I was not asking.
Nevermind, I do not know why I came back here to read your responses. I won't be so stpid this time.

Fine, if you don't want input, then by all means don't ask questions here. That works for everybody.

The answer to your question is no, except that lower temps can lead to lower humidity, and THAT can negatively impact shedding, but I doubt that is what happened here. And the problem referred to by myself and other responders wasn't your temperatures or even the fact that you were using a (humidity-killing) light bulb to provide heat, but that you were causing stress with 24 hour visible light.

:? (Sigh......)

I don't really think that the temp in the cage will affect When the snake shds. Like when it's, um, that time of the month, the event will happen regardless of outside situations. But your method of heating the cahe will affect your humidity level, which will directly affect How your snake sheds.

Nobody here mentioned that lightbulbs where humidity killing until you just did marla. Everyone else mentioned the photo period thing, which I already knew, but had to wait till this weekend to fix. AS for humidity killing lightbulbs....never heard of that and considering the fact I have lightbulbs on my frogs and their humidities need to be higher than the snakes and I don't have a problem keeping their humidities up. I don't see how the lightbulbs could be humidity killing. Besides I have a solid top on the tank to keep humidity and heat in, as well as having a large water dish in his tank for humidity I can and have misted his tank when the humidities get low. Even though the temps had been lowered, I had kept the humidity up. AS I mentioned the temps for fine during the day, and the daylight bulb had already come on when I woke up and checked temps and humidity, everything was fine in daylight hours. It wasn't until I got up before the daylight bulb came on and the nightlight had yet to turn off that I found out that the nightbulb was not heating well enough. So, I immediately turned the daylight bulb on to get the temps up. That same day, is the day same day that hubby turned the a/c on. I knew the a/c would affect the tank temps, so I checked to see how it was doing and it was lowered considerably. So, I used a one of the spare daylight bulbs I had (I keep several various wattages of bulbs, both red adylight and nighttime for emergencies, I just happened to have used the las nighttime bulb on another animal and the store was out), that was higher wattage to heat tank up to correct temps with a/c on. The humidity was fine everyday that I checked and I checked early and again when I got home from work and again before I went to bed. Since I know how crucial that this period can be I monitored Dobby well. It was while I was asleep that I had the problems. However, the more I think about it, I don't think the temps could have been low for more than 3 or 4 hours at night, and this was only for 2 days. Since I have a solid top that keeps the heat and humidity in, and when I check the temps at 1230 they were fine every night, the nightbulb had been on for 4 hours at this point, it wasn't until I got up at 6am that the temps had dropped, so sometime in between this time frame the temps had dropped. The daybulb comes on at 7am.
BTW Dobby shed 2 days ago, day after my original post. He shed in one complete piece, eye caps and all. His humidity levels are 70% right now, and I haven't misted the tank in 3 days.

Congratulations on a good shed.

I use a 60 Watt red bulb and it works fine but my snakes are kept in Sterilite tubs but i did have Jojo in a screen top tank. Right now Jojo is going to shed any day now and what i do is i fill the spray bottle with hot water and mist it onto the substrate on the warm side of the tank. I have had a light bulb go out at an inconvenient time. Or even if the power goes out. I have a first aid kit so i used one of the heat packs to hold my snakes over till the power came back on or i can get a new bulb. With the humidity at 70% thats perfect but it depends on how your reading that 70% do you have an analog meter or a digital meter. I could put my analog and my digital hygrometers side by side and the analog one always reads higher then the digital one. Maybe its time for me to get a new analog but if you spray your substrate often maybe once a day in the morning to almost simulate morning dew would be acceptable. A temp drop is ok just as long as it doesn't get below 78. If you have a light on at night then you should be ok because he can always choose which side of the tank he wants to be on. I noticed that wight my enclosures they used to get really cool like 75 even 74 on the cool side so i moved the tanks to an area that didnt get hit my the AC vents. Congrats on the shed it great when they give it to you in one piece. I haven't had a clean shed the last 2 times Jojo shed because he likes to leave a little surprize inside.

Sorry for the wordy post.

I have an analog in all of my tanks and a digital one I use to double check the analogs, I check the analogs once a week. So, far all but one of my analogs is on the money, the one that is off is only by a small amount. It was too expensive to buy a digital for all my tanks to monitor daily, so I bought the analogs as a daily check and then I make sure they are working well with the digital. My whole apartment stays pretty humid. Which is why we have the ac on, the humidity makes it feel like it's hotter inside than it is outside. We have 3 fish tanks in the upstairs and that keeps the humidity up. The temp in this room stays nice and warm since I have all these lights on.
The vent is on the ceiling near the window, so there are no animals near the vent. I am thinking about getting a stand that will support all my cages or at least half of them, but still thinking about whether I want to reoganize everyone.

I have a digital one in Jojo's house but at about $16 a digital one is expensive. And GE stopped making those light blue and white ones so i have to find another one for Coco's house. As far as aranging tanks i have the same problem. A while back i had a ball python that died an I got really discourged and i had an actual fish tank that he was living in and its a 20 gallon long. So i coulnt just have an empty tank so i made it into a fish tank i got 6 Cichlids in there. I had the tanks right below the thermostat for my AC so i moved it because the heat lamp would make the AC turn on. They make these steel shelves that you can buy at Home Depot or Lowes and they can support like 1000 pounds. But as far a snake tanks they are not that heavy and they are even lighter if you are using sterilite tubs. I plan on putting some track shelving with some wire shelves on the wall and put my snake houses on that. The best thing about this type of shelving is completely adjustable and you can put it just about anywhere and they are cheap. These things can hold hundreds of pounds but you got to screw them into the studs.

I can't screw into the studs. This apartment was built about 30 years ago and the studs are screwy. I can't figure out what they are made of, but can't nail into them and screws don't work either. All the stuff I have hanging is light stuff. Wonder how much one would hold without screwing into the studs. I know I almost bought a shelf from home depot, I work there.

Umm, about two 64-fl oz bottles of laundry detergent, one bottle of vinegar, and a couple of shirts. Then the wall gets torn up.

What do you mean the wall gets torn up?

Oh she had those shelvs thats the stuff she had on them and then the walls got torn up.

They have a tool that you can use called a stud finder. Thay have fancy ones that are like 60 bux and they have real simple ones that cost around 3 bux. What you do is run the stud finder just above the base board and the finder will either beep or indicate in some other way that you have found a nail. Then with a level Draw a line up the wall and this is where a stud is. Depending on how old the building is depends on the spacing. If your building is very, very old the stud spacing is 20" on center. If your building is less then 40 years old the spacing is 16" on center. You need to use at least a 1.75" coarse thread dry wall screw the longer the better i say 2" is good. If you do not screw into the studs what will happen is that the dry wall will crack and the shelves will fall off the wall tracks screws and all. Maybe i will install some this weekend and i will do a how to post.

It's not that I can't find the studs, it's that nothing will go into them. I am not unfamiliar with tools, but nothing will go into these studs. I have tried drilling and the drill just stops, and this is the same drill that did just fine when I drilled into the concrete outside to put some lights up.
When I mentioned I hung up light stuff only, I meant just that, cause I used small nails to hang up some pictures, and these are in the drywall. I have been using butterflies to hold some things in, but they make a big hole, and I am in an apartment, so I can't damage the walls too much.

I have lived in three different apartments and all the walls are like this. No one else here I have talked to has tried to hang anything other than pictures, so no one else has this problem.

A wood drill bit and a concrete drill bit are different. You dont need a drill bit just screws. But i do understand about apartments i live in an apartment too. I just used a wooden utility shelf and it worked fine. They do sell the kind that hold up fish tanks but these are really expensive. A snake tank does not weigh as much as a fish tank so the heavy duty stand isnt required.

Ok first of all, I know the difference between bits. My point was this was not some rinky dink drill, but despite that it was still not able to drill into the stud. I used a metal bit and a wood bit and neither worked. I can't see what the stud is, unless I tear some of the dry wall away which I am not willing to do.
Second, I was thinking about getting the heavy duty shelves for all my tanks not just the snake tank. I have a 30 gallon tall for my white's tree frog that weighs alot, it has rocks in the bottom. I have a 10 gallon with my green tree frog, but he will later need a 20 tall. I have a 20 long for my gecko with an enomous light, a 10 gallon for my firebelly toads, and they will need a 20 gallon, a 51/2 gallon for my tarantula and a 10 (later a 30 long) gallon for my snake. So, heavy duty is a must.
Is marla talking about the closet shelving or the actual rack book shelves?
I am thinking about the book shelf ones. For that one I intend on propping the front legs slightly, to make it tilt ever so slightly against the wall, that way it does not fall forward with weight.

I'm talking about the run where you mount runners on the wall that brackets attach into and the shelf sits on top of the brackets. I made the mistake (discussed with Damien before) of mounting them on a wall without mounting into studs, and they ended up tearing up the wall when the weight got too much for the sheetrock. If you're in an apartment maybe you should think about using utility shelving that you can take with you when you move instead of wall mounting. It might be a good option and they're usually adjustable too.

That's what I was planning on getting, the utility shelves. When he was talking about putting nails in the wall, I thought he meant for reinforcement, didn't realize we were talking about 2 different things.

Then no sweat. :)