Cage critique

Tell me what you guys think...

http://img65.photobucket.com/albums/...y/DSCN0211.jpg

I have two hide spots which are the clay planter things.
One acurite digital thermometer with hygrometer and a probe
100W CHE
One plant
One branch
One rock water bowl
One UTH
One TropicAire Humidifier and Air Exchanger

What do you guys think?

Any suggestions?

no suggestions. awesome setup. congrats on a job well done.

Looks nice. All I'd say is if 84 is the temp on the hot side, I'd try to get that up a bit higher to 90 or so, unless that's during a night time drop.

Looks very good, except that your thermometer can't measure surface temperature unless it's on the surface, so there's no telling what your temp on that side actually is. If you fix that and make sure your temps are good, I'd say your snake should be quite happy!

I'm only running my CHE right now until the thermostat I ordered gets here. Even with a couple layers over newspaper over the CHE... it still heats up to over 100 which is way too high.

The tropical air thing is sweet. I bought that about a month ago right before my bp went into shed. I had never been able to get her to shed in once piece before I added that to the setup. A perfect one piece shed resulted. I think its only necessary to keep it on while the snake is in shed though. Its much better than misting and covering because it supplies constant, fresh, humid air instead of just stale warm humid air that doesn't circulate.

How do you go about cleaning it? They say to clean it everyday, but they don't give any instructions on how and what to clean.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MissionHockey086

I'm only running my CHE right now until the thermostat I ordered gets here. Even with a couple layers over newspaper over the CHE... it still heats up to over 100 which is way too high.

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If 100+ is the air temperature, then the ground temps are almost certainly hot enough to cause burns! You really need to move that thermometer to ground level so you can measure your temps accurately.

Do you mean move the actual unit on top of the substrate or move the sensor?

Both. The probe on the warm side should be under the loose substrate and the unit on the cool side should be sitting on the bottom of the tank so you can measure belly temps. If not, ou are not getting accurate readings and temps could be way off (too hot or too cold).

Does this look better?

http://img65.photobucket.com/albums/...y/DSCN0212.jpg

Yes, looks great. Now just get your temps sorted out and you're in good shape. Once your thermostat arrives, that shouldn't be much trouble. :)

Yeah... the humidity is doing fine... just seems that I can't get my temperatures high enough. Right now the hot side is at 87.8, cool side is at 82.2 and the humidity is at 48%. When I get the thermostat, where should I place the sensor?

Temps are close enough that the snake isn't suffering or anything, so I wouldn't worry too much until the thermostat comes. You have two choices as to where to place the sensor, either directly on the heat source or on top of the substrate. I would place it directly on the heat source and then adjust it as needed until the thermometer on top of the substrate gives you the reading you need. It will take a matter of hours to get it adjusted correctly, and you'll need to turn off the CHE if you won't be using it after the temps are worked out with the belly heat.

Alright... I live in Southern Claifornia. What time should I run the CHE from? Turn on at 1AM, off at 12PM, would that be a good schedule?

You might want to skip the CHE altogether if you can, because it will dry up your enclosure more than the belly heat will and you are likely to find yourself with humidity issues living where you do (right now, I'm fighting too *high* humidity here because the relative humidity hasn't dropped below 70% in several days). A nighttime temperature drop of up to 5 degrees or so won't bother your snake in the slightest and will mimic natural conditions, but if the drop is too much, then I would schedule the timer on the CHE to run during whatever the coolest hours are, maybe 1 AM to 8 AM or so.

Would that be a good schedule?

I'm just guesstimating. You'll need to figure out first whether your night temp drops are big enough to need the CHE at all, and then what the coolest hours are in your area.

I live in So Cal too, and I just use under tank heating, no bulbs. But I use a rubbermaid so that may be different. Just out of curiosity, where in so cal are you?