Temp question

Hey gusy i got a humidifier for my snake and so far is keeping the cage right at 70%. so I am happy but the tempature is a ltitle off. It is about 85 on hot side and anywhere between 75-80 on cool. is this alright?

Can you describe your enclosure? What are you using for a heat source, what do you have controlling the heat source, is it a glass tank or tub? Also what are you using to measure temps/humidity?

ok then. Sorry for the slip up hehe. My tank is as follows:
20 gallong glass tank
1 Humidifier w/air pump
1 One setting UTH
Aspen bedding
1 hide
water bowl
log for climbing
1 digi termo and humidity reader
1 non digi thermop and humidtiy reader
1 heat lmap
taped and closed off top with 1-2 inchs on each side open for air circulation

Thats strange to me that you have a heat lamp and a UTH, and the temps are still low. What i would suggest because you got everything else covered is to move the lamp over to the middle of the enclosure to bring the warm side up a bit. Or you can pick up some reflectix at acew hardware and tape off three sides of the enclosure with it. So that way he feels a little more secure with three sides of the tank being taped off and the heat wont escape from the enclosure. Best of luck.

Oh also another thing make sure you go ahead and pick two identical hides, one for each side of the enclosure so he doesnt have to choose between security and thermoregulation...... :)

I have the top fo the tank taped off and the lamp directly above the hot side already. I may of just bought a really crappy pad is what i am thinking. Any brands you guys or gals would recommend? The one I bought is this white one with some wire in it. was the cheapest one at store which I think I am truly regretting buying now. I got a hook up at pet store now so I can get better cheaper. Heck got my humidifer for free last night so I scored there. Any advice would help greatly. I am worried with those temps she will get hurt

Umm, correct me if I am wrong all you more experienced people out there, but humidity should only be 70% when the snake is in shed. Otherwise it should be 50-60...

As for a good UTH, top two choices would be a ZooMed 10-20 or an Ultratherm from ReptileBasics sized to fit under 1/3 of the tank.

I suggest flexwatt. I know at the pet stores they have the Zoo med pads that work pretty well, but whatever you choose make sure you get a tstat or something to control the heat source with .....

so should I telll my GF at home to turn the pump down a little on the humdifier? she said smurf(snake's name) came out of the hide and crawled around on it before going back into it

I was just lookign at some heatign gear and found Helix DBS1000 Proportional Thermostat (Grounded). I am wonderign if anyone knwos if this comes with heating system to hook ti up to or what? If it does nto can anyone reocmmend a good one for it?

Hi,


I would imagine that unless you are buying it as part of a "bundle" it will not come with the actual heater it will be used to control.

What heating system you use depends on your setup but a nice UTH like flexwatt or zoomed reptile heating pads would be the kind of thing most people would recomend and then think of supplemental heating if that didnt prove to be enough.

Have a search around the forums as quite a few threads are out there that talk about setting up heating and thermostats.:)


dr del

Hello,

I am also wondering how thick you have the aspen and the placement of the probe on your digital thermometer on the hot side? I also have a glass tank to house my BP although I use the cypress mulch (but I would guess that it may be similar to aspen????). On the hot side you are really measuring the belly heat, but if your BP is anything like mine, my girl likes to push the mulch around under her hot side hide so I have my probe placed right on the glass so I can measure the temp at the glass so she won't get burned. I have found that if the substrate is too thick you won't get correct readings as they will read a bit lower than what they really are should your BP push away some of that substrate. So you may want to place the probe right on the glass and thin out your substrate a little to get the correct temps. In order to get the cool side temp up you may need to get another UTH with another thermostat in order to control that side's temps as well.

And the humidity shouldn't be at 70% all the time. You may not need to run the humidifier all the time, just when the humidity starts to fall down near 50% or below. When you start noticing your BP going into shed then you can bring the humidity up to around 60 - 70%.