Fell in Love with a Corn

I fell in love with a Snow Corn Snake and now I'm going today to the stuff for it. Here is my shopping list.

20g long tank (I already have this)

Newspaper (For the bedding)

Rheostat (Will be replaced by a thermostat when I buy a rack system)

Heatlamp and Heatpad (will be replaced by heat tape when I get the rack system)

Two hides (either buy or make myself)

Water dish (not sure if I need or not)

Pinkies (he is not big enough for anything else. How many should I get?)

Two digital thermometers (One for the warm side. One for the cooler side)

Hydrometer

Anything else I need?

A 20 gallon tank is really big for a baby corn snake.. Even a 10 gallon is big. If you really want that big of a tank, get some more hides for the baby. I'd start it off in a shoe box at first though..

i'd never put a baby corn in a tank that large. they won't find their water etc from what i've heard. i keep mine in a smaller (more like a 5 gallon tank) tub.

and yes... they definitely need a water dish!

i use aspen cause my corns LOVE to burrow under their substrate.

one word of caution: baby corns are escape artists!!! if there is even the smallest gap between the lid and container they are in... they will be gone!!!

20 Gallon is fine if there are enough hides. A snake's Jacobson's organ will have no trouble smelling out the pinkie, though I would put the pinkie in the hide with the snake just to be sure ;) .

I think the poster meant "I may already HAVE a water dish", not "Does the snake need one".

Corns are great - I have one myself :D .

Well I went to the store and picked up a heating lamp, two thermometers, newspaper, a water dish (just incase), two hides (one for each side), a new screen top with clamps, the snake and two fuzzies(frozen).

I wouldn't call the corn a baby. He's on fuzzies and Lang said he could graduate to hoppers soon. I have a space heater on standby if the temps won't increase to where they need to be.

Humidity is at 40% (Is this ok?)

Temp (Cool-side) - 70

Temp (Warm-side) - 73 (and rising)

Even if you already have a water dish, it's nice to have an extra. You can switch them out while you're cleaning the other, in case you break one, etc.

Temps are a little low on both sides, so I have plugged in the space heater and am waiting for it to warm that side of the room. Warm side sits at 73. My grandmother turns the temperature down at night (she can't sleep in a warm house). I'll tell her tomorrow that she needs to keep this level of the house (basement) warm since the snake is here. The heater should boost the temps up a bit. I'll check back in about 15 min to see if the heater is pumping out a good amount of heat.

Should I move the heater close to the tank or just keep it a few feet from the tank and let the air temperature warm the tank up?

Temp warm side - 78.5

I think I need to get a UTH but the petstores around here only sell Zoo-Med. Is this any good?

You will still need a thermostat (or at least a rheostat) with any UTH you get.. they get too hot without some sort of control.

The petstore only sells rheostats. I haven't put the UTH under the tank yet and my grandmother said that when she walked into my room last night, the temperature was possibly up in the 80s, which is what I want. She cut my space heater off, since she didn't know that my snake had to be kept warm. I've turned it back on and lets see if the temps go back up like that. If they do, I won't need the UTH.

There are several places to order a thermostat online. Unless you've got a specialty reptile store near you, you're really not going to find a thermostat in a pet store.

I'll have to wait till next month for a thermostat. Possibly longer. I'll be moving into a townhome with some friends and we'll need all the start up money we can get our hands on. The space heater is boosting the temperature, even if slowly. It was 74 on the warm side when I walked in this morning, (since my gma turned off the heater) and now Its up to 75.5. So the temp is rising.

I have the tank on the floor in a little nook where my mini fridge and sink is. The space heater is about three feet away. I could put it on the trunk and position the heater next to the tank that way the heat is getting to the tank easier.