New Setup - Pre Snake!

I am a new member, a new gear owner, and soon to be new owner of a beautiful Hypo Pastel Enchi from Garrick at Royal Constrictor. I wanted to share my current setup, discuss some of the issues I am having with calbration, and see if anyone has any suggestions and feedback on my temps/measurements before I "go live".

Snake is a female, roughly 150g

My gear:
Showcase Cage 24" x 16" x 18"
Undertank heat pad
150W CHE
Herpstat 2 - controlling both heat sources
Hot hide, cool hide, water dish
Eco Earth substrate
IR Thermo

I have the cage in a relatively cool and variable temp living room, hence the high wattage heater. I am still dialing in the heat settings, but am close. I have dialed in a stable humidity with misting and moistening substrate, but am still struggling with temperatures.

I have the UTH taped to the bottom of the cage (with the Herpstat probe sandwiched between the UTH and the bottom of the cage for thermo control) with a bath tile underneath it to protect the wood table it is placed on. I can dial this in to a perfect 91 for belly heat under the substrate under the hide. There is a bit of clearance between the bottom of the UTH and the tile for what it is worth - is that reccomended? I had considered crumpling up some aluminum foil to help keep the pad pressed firmly against the bottom of the cage, since the probe is keeping some of the pad from actually touching the floor of the cage.

I struggle with ambient temps largely due to what I suspect is the temperature of the room. What is the best place to set the CHE controlling probe? Should it be directly under the hottest part of the CHE, or slightly offset? When it is slightly offset, it takes more heat from CHE to get the probe up to temp, which can cause overheating of some of the substrate (mid 90's measured in small area directly under CHE with IR thermometer). But when I place the probe directly under the CHE in this hot zone, and dial in the perfect temp, it holds a nice temp, but the cool side of the cage drops down to the low 70s!

My question - what is the ideal placement for the CHE monitoring probe? Should it be buried under a thin coating of substrate? Is it better to have one zone perfect, one hot hide dialed in, surface temp on hot side dialed in, but with a too-cool cold hide side? Or better to overheat a small area slightly to get the ambient temps just up to 75 on cool side, but possibly mid 90's in the hottest zone?

The big issue I seem to have is that both the UTH and the CHE are on the same side of the tank! Part of me wants to just use the CHE for the hot side, and the UTH to keep the "cool" side just right, but that seems like not an ideal solution, as the "belly heat" seems to be required, and an overhead CHE isn't going to heat the floor of something shaded.

I am still fine tuning here, but would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. Looking for goldilocks zone!

Adam

Man, I am amazed that you did so much homework & such a great job before even getting your snake. Thats awesome!!! Congrats on the new one and with the Husbandry your working on your going to have a happy camper....
As far as the space between UTH/Tile/Tank thats good.
As far as the UTH and CHE on the same side thats not good. Use the UTH for Hot Side Basking under hide at 88-91.. Then use the CHE for the cool side ambient of 75-80. Place your Probe around 10" down for a 18" H enclosure.
With this said you need a Accurite Thermometer with a Probe for Hot side temp and then place the Head unit on cool side to measure that along with the Humidity. What the Herpstat says and what the Hot side temp will be are going to be different as is the ambient cool from the Tstat probe reading.
Example- my Herpstat reads 98 degrees on my UTH and once it goes through the enclosure and Paper substrate my thermometer reads 90 where snake touches.
On my cool side the Herpstat reads 85 but 10"'s lower where the snake would be the thermometer reads 78 for cool side..
Sounds like you have great equiptment but a thermometer that has a probe for Hot and the head unit for Cool and Humidity is a must... Here is the Thermometers we all use and also a link so you see how we set them up.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...-With-Pictures!
FREE SHIPPING at LOWES. Amazon charges more because everyone knows people use them for reptiles now.
https://m.lowes.com/pd/AcuRite-Digit...meter/50425266

-..... And welcome to the site/hobby ect....



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you!

The biggest issue I think I am battling is ambient room temp. My current location gets down to 65-66 at night! Step one is relocation. I have another warmer room that I am going to try - at a minimum it should run a few degrees warmer at night, and day. I suspect a lot of my struggles are with ambient temp on exterior of the cage cooling around the walls inside. I may also try insulating the exterior of the walls to help hold the warmth.

Unfortunately this model of cage has the UTH slot right under the cutout for the CHE, so I am stuck with top and bottom heat over the warm side with no obvious way to warm the rest! See photos for layout below.

First, here is a photo from Garrick of the new beauty! She arrives Thursday!
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil.../4/9/snake.jpg

Here is the cage from the front:
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...4/9/cage_1.jpg

Note that in this image, the hide on the left immediately next to the water dish (small to be replaced with something a bit larger) is sitting on top of the wire to the black probe I am using to control the overhead CHE. It is uncovered currently as you can see, and sitting dead center under the CHE. I have it tied to the Herpstat #2, which is set for 93.

The UTH is also immediately under this left rock hide, and the probe is set for 92, and (at the moment of this picture has dropped down to 86.3 internal, but as you can see was hovering around upper 80's to 90). The white thermometer is measuring humidity at the place it sits next to the cool hide, and the probe wire is running to the floor of the hot hide. It was at 90 before I opened the cage.

Ignore the black accurite in the back left corner, it isn't working!

Here is the cage from the top:
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...4/9/cage_2.jpg

As you can see the screen for the CHE is directly aligned over the same spot the underneath heat is located. Unfortunately that leaves a cavernous space on the right (under the herpistat) where there is no obvious way to heat!

In short, I can keep the center of my cage easily dialed in to the right temperatures, on substrate, and belly heat in the hot hide. However, on the periphery of the cage I am seeing ground temps that are lower than ideal. The snake will be able to find a place to get warm and hide, and a place to get cool and hide. However, the ambient temps range greatly to where the corners of the cage are just too cold based on my reading.

Do you think the insulation and room change will be enough? Also since the hot hide is directly under the CHE - the top of the hide itself can sometimes overheat - sometimes to a temp that is quite hot since it is close to the heat source. Is it ok to have certain spots out in the open that are too hot for a snake to rest on?