Ambient temperature higher than surface temp??!

Hi all,

i am new to bp's and this forum so please bear with me.
I've kept king snakes before but having trouble getting the husbandry for a bp right so any advice would be appreciated greatly.
i have a piebald bp, 10 month old, at first set up was great, 60% humidity, 35C ambient temperature, 90f hot spot and 80f cold spot. Over time the ambient temperature has risen to 40C, the surface temp has fallen to 85 on the hot side and 75 on the cold. Even with these changes, my bp has decided the hot side was too much and discovered the cold hide. Now she never comes out when she used to be active, I left her to see if she'd return to the hot side but hasn't even come out to drink. I had to get her out today to see if she was ok and she was freezing to the touch. Placed her on the hot side and she perked up and had a drink and returned to the hot hide. Now the humidity has fallen to 30% and no matter how much I mist it, it never rises. I have forest floor mixed with sphagnum moss, I've added a 3rd moss hide and still no luck with daily misting. She is in a 20g aquarium with moonlight bulb with the thermostat set at 88f. When I turn the heat down the humidity rises but if I want to achieve 90f hot spot the humidity is just massively low.
Complicated to say the least and I need to solve this ASAP. Thank you guys.

Hi,
If you use light bulb for heating, the ambient temp can be upper than the surface temp. I don't know what you use to measure it, but maybe the problem is here. The aquarium is screen top?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

Hi,
If you use light bulb for heating, the ambient temp can be upper than the surface temp. I don't know what you use to measure it, but maybe the problem is here. The aquarium is screen top?

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thanks for getting back to me so quickly. No it's a wooden top with glass doors. I've got a dial gauge at the mouth of her hide and a dial temperature and humidity gauge on the back wall. The thermostat probe is at the back of her hide.

Could it be possible an infra red bulb would dry the air less? And also provide less light stress???

What's bugging me is surely she knows how to thermoregulate, so why is she choosing to make herself freezing when she could just go to her hot hide and warm up? Man i just wanna get this right!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keshi

thanks for getting back to me so quickly. No it's a wooden top with glass doors. I've got a dial gauge at the mouth of her hide and a dial temperature and humidity gauge on the back wall. The thermostat probe is at the back of her hide.

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Analog gauges can be very inaccurate sometimes.

It make even more drier the air in my experience. Before you try to fix it, get digital thermo and hygro meter, and if you want to measure more accurate the surface temp, use temp gun for. That analog things are really inaccurate. You need correct measurements to set up the thermostat. If you still have humidity issues, better to use UTH instead of bulbs.

It is likely a combination. The inexpensive dial gauges with paper face cards are very poor quality and often the paper swells and traps the needle.

Ambient air temps should be measured with out influence of the heater. Most heaters used in reptile keeping are radiant heaters and they effect objects far more than air. The result is if the ambient air temp is measured under/above or in contact with the enclosure it is not a true reading. It is not likely you have air temps exceeding the surface temp. Possible just rare. Lamps vary there are 'heat lamps' that are radiant heat sources and others that are convection.

Judging by the info you have provided it is more likely that your placement is being adversely influenced by the lamp. Try moving the thermometer out of line of sight of the bulb and up off the floor (it doesn't need to stay there just temporality.) usually about ⅓ -½ up from the floor and in the middle or off centre towards the cool side.


RH this to me is a huge indicator that you have a not ambient air temp reading. RH is relative to temperature, and at 35ºC 6-% RH is 23.9 gm/m3 absolute humidity. This is a massive amount, almost unbelievable. If your ambient were this high and your room where the enclosure is were below 78 it would be condensing water. If you had 100% correct numbers and you did drop the ambients down to correct levels the RH would be around 110% so everything would be covered in water. (dew point is over the actual temperature) again possible but not likely.

The accuracy or placement or both is the most likely culpret.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

It is likely a combination. The inexpensive dial gauges with paper face cards are very poor quality and often the paper swells and traps the needle.

Ambient air temps should be measured with out influence of the heater. Most heaters used in reptile keeping are radiant heaters and they effect objects far more than air. The result is if the ambient air temp is measured under/above or in contact with the enclosure it is not a true reading. It is not likely you have air temps exceeding the surface temp. Possible just rare. Lamps vary there are 'heat lamps' that are radiant heat sources and others that are convection.

Judging by the info you have provided it is more likely that your placement is being adversely influenced by the lamp. Try moving the thermometer out of line of sight of the bulb and up off the floor (it doesn't need to stay there just temporality.) usually about ⅓ -½ up from the floor and in the middle or off centre towards the cool side.


RH this to me is a huge indicator that you have a not ambient air temp reading. RH is relative to temperature, and at 35ºC 6-% RH is 23.9 gm/m3 absolute humidity. This is a massive amount, almost unbelievable. If your ambient were this high and your room where the enclosure is were below 78 it would be condensing water. If you had 100% correct numbers and you did drop the ambients down to correct levels the RH would be around 110% so everything would be covered in water. (dew point is over the actual temperature) again possible but not likely.

The accuracy or placement or both is the most likely culpret.

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I just want to say a massive thank you to all who responded so quickly on behalf of my snake! I went down to the exotics shop and bought a digital temp and humidity gauge. After setting that up it was reading 78% humidity!!!! Although the temps were just a tad too high . I am absolutely bloody outraged that these dial probes are allowed to be sold, it would have been detrimental to my snake and I am so angry you wouldn't believe it, I could cry literally.
hopefully now she will be much happier.

Don't be angry. Now will be okay :)

I would just like to add one point here, to help put your mind at ease. Most people run a normal body temperature of around 98-99 degrees F. Extremities in humans may run from 89 degrees on the surface, up to 95 or 96 degrees F. Most ball pythons run at a surface temperature of around 82-85 degrees F. Because of the temperature differences, frequently, snakes feel cool to the touch. With the ambient and surface temps you described, it would seem unlikely that your python was dangerously cold.

The humidity readings were probably your biggest problem, and thanks to the many excellent responses that is taken care of.

Best of Luck.

David

Thank you once again, I now have stable temperatures and humidity is slowly reducing, hopefully will have fallen a lot more by tomorrow but will keep you posted :D

Just an update, her ambient temp is now 83.3 with a 90 degree hotspot. All well and good? Humidity is down to mid 60's but hopefully that will come down to 60. Much more pleased with that, she's spending most of her time in the hot hide again.

Yes that is fine. The best hygrometers are the dial types, but they should always have a metal face card (never paper) and can be calibrated. (analogue hygrometers can be calibrated with a salt test cheap and easy, digitals need a special test kit as the salt air kills them) Thermometers are always an issue the cheap digital ones are ok ish. The good digital ones are very expensive, too much for most. I either use a good stat (like a herpstat, helix, ecozone, herpkeeper) to check cheap digitals against, (probe to probe) or buy quite a lot and use averages to weed out the ones that are off of the pack. It usually works and the odd ones often are quite wrong.

The wonderful world of accuracy. The other end of the process is to use the acceptable variation in measuring your temperatures. Most thermometers give a range of accuracy, up and down. This is the expected deviation (and represents how good the manufacturing is at least partially) for example a thermometer may read 80ºF but have an accuracy range of +/-2ºF. This means that the actual temp may be between 78-82ºF. +/- 2ºF is super common most cheap ones are this or worse. Some are +/-2ºC (close to 4ºF) and I have also seen some rated to 4ºC (around 7ºF up or down) I would suggest that anything having an accuracy farther than +/-2ºF not be used. It is worth checking the specs, often there are none I would avoid these altogether.

Some of the 'popular' units on this forum are +/-4ºF I would avoid them too. Check the specs.

Interesting you say that. I wonder what you class as cheap! My digital probe cost £25 it's an exoterra one, what do you think?