newbie looking for heating help

Hi I'm new too this and have some questions about heating, I went today and bought a "starter" kit from my local reptile supplyer, it came with a plastic tank very sturdy and covered in vents a heat mat and all the gubbins to go inside. I filled the tank with the shavings and popped the bowl and hide in hoping to test that everything worked.. Plugged the heat mat in and waited.. My main concern is the mat dosnt seem to heat the tank much if at all, I have a termostate set to the right temp but that never seems too go off, at first I thought it was the surface being in the top floor in the winter the room is cold and the laminate top tesk the tank is on is cold, after adding some card to the underside of the heater it seemed to warm up but again nowere near as warm as I expected. I tryed plugging it in directly to the mains just incase the thermostat was just a variable resistor but alas still no joy or heat.. Sorry to ramble.. Any advice?

Do you have a thermoMETER as well, to measure your temps? You won't necessarily FEEL the heat. I can hardly feel the heat from my UTH through the glass, but my thermometer assures me that it's 90-92 degrees. Your snake will feel it much more than you will.

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Also the UTH is for a hot spot, not to heat the whole thing.

Give the mat a couple hours to heat up. Feel the substrate above the mat. It should be warm. It's not so much the temperature of the air, it's more so the bottom. Ball pythons are bottom dwelling and need more belly heat. If you're still concerned, get a red heat lamp. It'll raise the overall temperature of the air.

The denser the substrate is over the UTH the more difficult it will be for the snake to feel the heat. I keep all of mine less than 1/2 inch deep.

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Originally Posted by Saber402

The denser the substrate is over the UTH the more difficult it will be for the snake to feel the heat. I keep all of mine less than 1/2 inch deep.

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Thank you all so much the mat got up to heat and the bottom of the tank is warm now :) still no change in ambiant but I'm much happyer with it now :) thanks again

What is the temperature of the glass below the substrate at?

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

What is the temperature of the glass below the substrate at?

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Its tottering between 80-84 thermostat kicks in at 80 takes it to 84 the offs it :D I figured the end of the uth was getting cold and slowing the current so I popped a bit of card over to insulate the end that is in open air and card under to stop the cold surface from doing the same to the underside, I'm going to replace the card with either cork or ruber to be on the safe side but it seems to be doing the trick.. Do you think it would be a good idea to cover up a few of the vents to try and trap a little heat or will purely ground heat do the job

what are you planning on keeping in the enclosure?

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

what are you planning on keeping in the enclosure?

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Ball pyton.. Its a small female just under 1ft I think.. Been a few days and carnt quite rember

Yeah, you will need to get that temp up a little more.
Overhead heat lamp will raise the ambient temp.

Cool thanks for the tips :D feel much happyer about it all now :)

hi all, Elliot is very happy and warm now, feeding like a champ too, maybe a odd silly question but when we handle her she tends to tense up and loosening like shes constricting nothing at all.. dont know if its odd behaviour or if its normal is all

Sounds like she's still just getting used to being handled by the giant pinkish warm things that make funny vibrations. We're pretty intimidating to snakes considering the size difference, so just imagine being in her "shoes" and see the world in her point of view. Might take her a few more handling sessions before she becomes more comfortable with you.

Ah thats ok then :) hissie is a happy little lass I'm sure she will get use to use in time :) thank you for the speedy reply :)

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Originally Posted by ViperSRT3g

Sounds like she's still just getting used to being handled by the giant pinkish warm things that make funny vibrations. We're pretty intimidating to snakes considering the size difference, so just imagine being in her "shoes" and see the world in her point of view. Might take her a few more handling sessions before she becomes more comfortable with you.

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hi again every one sorry to be a pain.. but my python seems to be doing great just one thing, a few days ago her belly went pink and her eyes clouded so we thought she was heading into shed, but now her eyes have gone normal and her belly isn't pink but her skin feels very dry, we have been raising the humidity with a water spray on her aspen, she was very grumpy and would hiss whenever you disturbed her but allowed us to pick her up and look at her today, was just wondering if any one knew if this is normal or if there's something we need to do she feed on Sunday perfectly fine so can i rule out stress?

Panic over hahaha I'm watching her shed right now! She's proper screwed up her first skin tho.. Not a happy bunny