Controling temps with substrate?

I keep my apartment about 72-74 most of the time. I noticed that when I heat my flexwatt to where the floor of the tub is 95 degrees, that the 1 single layer of papertowel on top only measures 90. If i heat the tub to 100 degrees, the paper towel on top measures 95. When I check the actual snake temp, its usually within a few degrees of the substrate and not the tub floor.

Is this normal and safe? I'm planning to just heat the entire tub with 1 foot of 11 inch flexwatt and then just pile more papertowls on the cool end. If I can get this to heat the substrate to the proper temps, is that ok? My worry is that the snake will burrow down paste the substrate where the temps are closer to 100 and it will be too hot for them.

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Originally Posted by spaceturtle

I keep my apartment about 72-74 most of the time. I noticed that when I heat my flexwatt to where the floor of the tub is 95 degrees, that the 1 single layer of papertowel on top only measures 90. If i heat the tub to 100 degrees, the paper towel on top measures 95. When I check the actual snake temp, its usually within a few degrees of the substrate and not the tub floor.

Is this normal and safe? I'm planning to just heat the entire tub with 1 foot of 11 inch flexwatt and then just pile more papertowls on the cool end. If I can get this to heat the substrate to the proper temps, is that ok? My worry is that the snake will burrow down paste the substrate where the temps are closer to 100 and it will be too hot for them.

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I wouldnt heat the entire tub, just 1/3 of it, flexwatt is cheap and you can get the proper size for the tub... And yes it is normal for a probe place in a different location for the reading on the tub floor to be different than what your thermostat says... Also how is a snake going to burrow through paper towels?

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Originally Posted by Mochelem

I wouldnt heat the entire tub, just 1/3 of it, flexwatt is cheap and you can get the proper size for the tub... And yes it is normal for a probe place in a different location for the reading on the tub floor to be different than what your thermostat says... Also how is a snake going to burrow through paper towels?

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If i only heat 1/3 of it, then that makes 2/3 of the tub sitting at 72 degrees. I want to keep the cool end at 80-85 and the warm 90-95.

And they can burrow under the paper towels pretty easily. I don't have them locked down or anything. Things tend to move around and get repositioned after time.

Have you thought about enclosing the tub in a box? This would help keep the heat in :)

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Originally Posted by starmom

Have you thought about enclosing the tub in a box? This would help keep the heat in :)

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Humidity is perfect though. Putting anything around the enclosure would result in too high humidity. I have the holes drilled to keep the humidity at 55% most of the time.

If your thermostat fails and you have the entire tub over a flexwatt you will cook your snakes.... If you have the top closed enough heat from the warm side will carry over to the cool side. You may also need to play around with venting and water dish placment to get the humidity right...

Another thing you can do is run 2 pieces of small flexwatt, one on each side of the tub, and have a seperate thermostat control the cool side....

Ok here's what I've done.

I have a 28qt tub with all flexwatt beneath it. The entire floor of the tub is warmed to 95. I have only 1 papertowel over the "warm hide" allowing my temp gun to shoot 90 degrees. The "cool hide" has more paper towels on it and shoots at 80 degrees. The water above the 80 degree towel shoots about 77.

Is this acceptable? I understand it might be a risk if the thermostat goes out, but I'm not immediately in a position to get more flexwatt / thermostats. Is this ok temporarily? Would it be safer to just have 1/3 heated to 95 and let the rest be 72 / room temp?

I've also placed an order for a rheostat and some of those ultratherm UTHs. My plan is to use the low wattage / rheostat regulated stuff for warming the cool end. This should be safer than the alternative I'm using now.

I wouldn't recommend it Spaceturtle. I would never cover the entire bottom of a tub or tank with flex-watt in case of a failure. And, yes, a snake can get beneath the paper towels very easily.

Yeah I see what you mean. It is a bit too risky...

It sucks that I can't keep the cool side warm enough. I'm basically going to need two thermostats per snake now. I have two of them in different sized tubs. I had originally hoped to just have everything off one thermostat, but I'm finding tub size has an effect on temps, even though all my flexwatt is the same size and plugged into the same thermostat. Only if I use the same tub size positioned in the same way do I get the same temps.


Surely I'm not the only person in the world with a house heated to 72 degrees that houses their snake in a tub exposed to the open air. Are there any other options other than a 2nd heating source? Maybe I need to look into insulation for my tub. I also thought about stacking the smaller tub on top of the larger. I'm hoping some of the heat from the smaller tub will carry down the larger tub's cool end down below, and vice versa.

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Originally Posted by spaceturtle

Humidity is perfect though. Putting anything around the enclosure would result in too high humidity. I have the holes drilled to keep the humidity at 55% most of the time.

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You could just put in a couple of more holes ;)

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Originally Posted by starmom

You could just put in a couple of more holes ;)

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Yeah, problem is that I already have like a billion holes on all sides of the enclosure now. Maybe that's why my cool side temps are so crappy? I'm finding the humidity hard to keep below 60 even with as small of a water bowl as I'm willing to use. Room humidity is about 40-50 usually. I keep the tub between 50 and 60 but it requires lots of holes and low amounts of water. Water is on the cool end too.

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Originally Posted by spaceturtle

Yeah I see what you mean. It is a bit too risky...

It sucks that I can't keep the cool side warm enough. I'm basically going to need two thermostats per snake now. I have two of them in different sized tubs. I had originally hoped to just have everything off one thermostat, but I'm finding tub size has an effect on temps, even though all my flexwatt is the same size and plugged into the same thermostat. Only if I use the same tub size positioned in the same way do I get the same temps.


Surely I'm not the only person in the world with a house heated to 72 degrees that houses their snake in a tub exposed to the open air. Are there any other options other than a 2nd heating source? Maybe I need to look into insulation for my tub. I also thought about stacking the smaller tub on top of the larger. I'm hoping some of the heat from the smaller tub will carry down the larger tub's cool end down below, and vice versa.

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If you have the warm side at about 95 on the substrate (even going up a few degrees if you have to) the cool side is ok at 79-85F. When you have one side that is really that warm, then it will transfer enough heat. If the snake feels too cold then it should just go to the warm side to thermo regulate.

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Originally Posted by blackcrystal22

If you have the warm side at about 95 on the substrate (even going up a few degrees if you have to) the cool side is ok at 79-85F.

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Would be great if that happened, but the cool side is instead about 74-77 when the substrate is 95 and tub floor 100. I haven't seen it get to 80 unless I play with the thermostat for my apartment.

The open air and cool table below the un-heated side just counteracts the UTH way too much. This is with the flexwatt covering about half the enclosure. Weird, huh? This is with a 28qt sterilite tub. Same problem w/ the 12qt.

I believe you have table, then flexwatt, then tub, right?

Maybe if you put a layer of aluminum foil between the table and the flexwatt, it would help bounce some of the heat back up?

Doesn't cost much to try it! :D

Where is your snake spending most of his time? It's really a balancing act and lots of people have to compromise one thing or another. People in humid climates have higher humitity etc.... It sounds like you have too many holes in your tub. With fewer holes your temps would be good, but your humidity would be high. Sometimes you just can't have perfection. All my temps are a little low and my humidity runs a little high (tubs and tanks). But my snakes are all happy and healthy.

Okay- here's a crazy thought: How bout looking into a reptile cage?
If you're thinking of using to t'stats per tub, a reptile cage is not much more $$ and the cage will control the humidity AND the temps... :P

^^^ I was not seriously considering buying 4 thermostats. But a reptile cage is something I hope to get for all my animals once I have more time to save money. It's just not a good time, finacially, for me to throw money around.

I have foil tape securing the flexwatt to the table. I will try covering all the flexwatt w/ the tape though.

And yeah I think I may be getting too caught in "perfection" and maybe should just let it be a lil imperfect. I suppose the cool end being too cool is better than the warm being too hot. My snake spends 95% of his time in his warm hide anyways.

Afterall, my sister in law has had a BP for 10 years living off nothing but a heat rock in a room temp 20gal tank with a screen lid. She's now 2200 grams and looks fat and healthy to me. She's never once had any vet trips or problems. She goes off feed during breeding season, but other than that she's been ok. I'm pretty confident my husbandry is at LEAST better than this =)