Temperature help, PLEASE!

[KahleenB]

Hello all. It's been a week since we've bought fluffy and it has just been very stressful. We live in a basement apartment and have absolutely no control over the temperature in the house.

We have been trying to get the temperatures to where they need to be and its just not working.

Last night we went to bed with the temperatures as followed:
93.2 Hotside
82 ambient
78.3 coldside

This morning we awoke to find that the following temeratures:
89.3 hotside
73.9 coldside

We finally get a functioning temperature and then the next morning we need to raise / lower where the lamp is placed.

We have a 30 gallon tank, mesh topped. The coolside of the mesh is covered with tin foil to help retain humidity and heat.
We are currently using a 75 watt nocturnal infrared heat lamp (zoo med) to heat the tank.

Since the ambient temperature of the house is all over the place we have been pulling our hair trying to get the temperatures in the tank where they need to be and it has become nothing but stressful for poor fluffy because every few hours we need to open up the lid of the tank to check the temperatures around the tank.

Any help, ideas, products or anything would be useful at this point. (We would be willing to pay more money to get this handled and have consistent temperatures)

We just want fluffy to be happy and healthy. That is our priority.

Thank you.

[readymade]

If you have a closet you're not using try putting your snake in there with a ceramic space heater with a built in thermostat just a suggestion

[KahleenB]

Unfortunately we don't have a large enough (or empty) closet

[pinkpineappleshoes]

you could try using a uth? that will help maintain temps quite well if its regulated. The temperature drops slightly in my tank overnight because i use a heatlamp which is switched off. But my uth stays on continually so there is always a maintained hotspot.

Try not to worry yourself too much it has only been a week. Whenever i change my snakes tanks it usually takes a few days of adjustments and continually checking on temperatures to make sure everything is being maintained correctly. Every tank is different.

[pinkpineappleshoes]

also is there no way for you to check temperatures without disturbing your snake. I have my displays setup so i can just check them by looking without my bp even knowing im there 😊 that might help reduce the stress a little

[KahleenB]

We were told the UTH wouldn't be helpful in our situation because the coldside would be too cold. We are just worried about making him sick if the temperatures aren't where they should be.

We have a probe thermometer/hydrometer so we need to move it within the tank to get the hot and cold side temps.

[pinkpineappleshoes]

Is your lamp regulated? I would suggest getting digital thermometres for each end that you can just leave in place and check temperatures easily at a glance. They arnt very expensive. I wouldnt use just a uth soley because as you said, the ambient temps would be too cold. but it could be something to look into. Its fine for the ambients to drop within a certain range overnight. If 89 and 73 were your overnight temps and 93 78 your daytime temps, that doesnt sound too bad at the moment. Nothing that would make him sick imo

[bcr229]

Your situation screams out for getting an appropriate reptile enclosure, not another fish tank, for your snake when it outgrows the tank it's in now. As you're discovering fish tanks can be made to work with a lot of time and effort, but only if you control the HVAC. Since you don't you need an enclosure that will maintain your snake's microclimate no matter what happens with your apartment's heat and humidity.

Short term I would put a UTH with a thermstat under the tank, and put a hide over it, which will give your BP a warm and consistent place to lie even if the room ambient temperature fluctuates. Longer term you'll want to research the various enclosure makers and find one you like.

[nightrainfalls]

Those temps are fine. Your snake can easily tolerate the four degree swing in temps on the hot side. If the cool side gets too low, the snake just won't go there or stay there. Remember that snakes have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to survive in conditions significantly less stable then the tank you are providing. Getting a better enclosure and a UTH will help, but right know your snake is not in any danger.

My hot side is usually 88, and my UTH never goes above 90. My snake eats like a pig, is getting bigger, sheds regularly and is thriving.

Trust me, 89.3 is just fine, so is 93.2. In fact, don't even bother measuring tenths of a degree. Hot sides should be 88-93. Cool sides can drop down to the seventies. Sometimes in winter my cool side hits 69. My snake doesn't care, because she is curled up in the middle of the cage in a hide that runs 83-85 degrees.

If you want to make sure your snake has access to a 90 degree spot, install a UTH set to 90 with a thermostat, and put a hide on the warm end, the hide will remain at the high temp even if the tank cools down a little.

David