keeping temp stable and humidity up

[lizlopez]

I purchased a t10 animal plastics cage for my large BP several months ago. I have the flexwatt under one end and it has a VE-100 set at 105F right now. Here is my problem my snake lives in my classroom and I have very little control of the room temp. He was fine at the start of the year and keeping a pretty normal range of temp, but when winter arrived the rooms heater is turned off at night and over the weekends so it can get quite cold in there. I had problems keeping his temps up so raised his temp to 108F and was looking at adding a RHP over his warm side to help to get him out of the mid 80's for his warm spot. But now we have warmed up a bit and I arrived at school to find his warm side around 95F so have turned his temp back down a bit.

Before this new cage I had always used a cheep Zilla regulator on a 50 gallon tank with the sensor in the tank so it just turned on his CHE and UTH when needed and off when not and he maintained temp through summer heat waves and winter chills.

Can any of you advise a setup for his heating that would stabilize his temps through the swings in the room temp? I am coming in to check on him all the time but fear that I will have to raise his temps and will get a warm spike and find a dead snake the next day.

I am also having a hard time keeping humidity up in this cage. I am using newspaper as a bedding and will lightly mist but dont know how much you can mist the paper? Should I switch to a different bedding that holds more moisture? and if so which one would you suggest.

I am out in the CA bay Area so since we dont have the huge temp swings that some you you see so I know there must be a solution

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I dont want to take him home because my students love his so much!

[danojeno]

Liz, I don't have an AP cage yet (ordered it today), but trying to raise ambient temps with an UTH is very difficult if you have a chilly room. You end up sizzling the belly to gain a few degrees. I am going with RHPs, though some say they aren't the answer either. If you haven't already, try leaving the lights on in the enclosure for a few more.degrees..

[XoKarma]

I use eco earth coconut fiber for a substrate, it's fairly cheap and holds humidity amazingly for me. I use glass tanks with screen tops and eco earth mixed with water until it clumps but isn't mud, my humidity stays 45-50% for a week before I have to remix it.

I don't use a uth, I have a red 125 watt red heat lamp on both of my 30 gallon breeders which keep my hot side 90-92 ish and my ambient 80-84 ish

I'm not sure about where you are, but the pet store here sells a regulater with a thermometer. You put the thermometer in the tank, plug the regulater into your heat lamp and then into the outlet. It will heat the tank up to the temp you have set and then kill power to the lamp, kicking it back on once the temp drops. I'm not sure how well it works, I don't personally use it, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

Ps: if you do try the eco earth I wouldn't recommend feeding on it as it's like a soil and sticks to everything including the prey. It is safe to digest but snakes have a hell of a time getting it out if their mouths.. I lay paper towl over the substrate before feeding.