please help--thermostat reading vs thermometer reading

[Apple_cafe]

Hi all,

I am having issues with heating my 7 month old boy's tub. He is the first animal i've ever had that needs heating equipment and to say I'm anxious is an understatement.
Originally I was using an UTH and a CHE overhead on the hot side, both hooked up to a herpstat thermostat. Today I added a 50watt CHE (with thermostat) on the cool side because I live in a basement apartment and the ambient temp was just getting too low on the cool side. (Luckily, the surface temps in the hot hide at least have been right on.)

The thing that's causing me so much anxiety is the CHE and ambient temps. My thermostat probe for the CHE and my hot side thermometer/humidity reader are both at the same height in the cage, just on front side vs back side, while the cool side thermostat probe is almost next to the other thermometer--but the readings between the thermometers and their respective thermostats are COMPLETELY different.

Before the second CHE, the hot side thermostat was set to 88 while the thermometer across from it would rarely get above 84, usually closer to 80-82 during the day and 78 at night. The cold side would go from the 78 during the day and 72 at night.
As I type this, the hot side thermostat is showing 88 but the regular thermometer is only at 78, while the cool side is 82 thermostat vs 75 thermometer. I imagine they are a little lower than usual right now because i had the tub lid off for a short while to get the second CHE squared away.

I feel like I've read everything there is to read about ambient tank temps and nowhere can I find an answer to this. I don't know whether to crank the thermostat settings up so that the thermometers show it as warmer, or to turn it down because 88 is too high of an ambient temp.

He seems to be behaving normally (I think!). during the day he seems to be almost exclusively in his cool hide (except for a couple days after he ate when he went over to the hot hide). He likes to watch me while I'm on my computer in the evenings and I know he is out exploring at night because I can see the evidence of him moving around. I took him out the other day and he was absolutely friendly, not balled up at all.

I just love this boy so much and I'm straight up freaking out about his heating. I don't want to hurt him. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

[nikkubus]

I'm trying to create a picture in my mind of thermometer/probe placement. Do you mean that the thermostat probe is on the outside of the tub? Or do you mean they are both inside, but on opposite walls? Is the CHE central to the thermostat probe and thermometer or closer to one? Have you double checked with a different thermometer to make sure the one isn't reading off by several degrees?

If he is sleeping in the cool side hide most of the time, I feel like the ambient might be a little on the high side vs not hot enough. I wouldn't be super worried that it's way out of range either though, because he would likely be in his water dish to cool off or nose rubbing trying to escape.

Is this tub in a rack or just loose? It might be that the side the thermometer is on is cooling off more than the side the probe is on because of where it's placed in the room. For example, if you have it in a shelf where the length of the tub is against the back wall of the shelf, and that back wall is where the probe is? Having the tub with the cool end facing out is the most ideal for temp gradient, though it's not the best to observe him obviously. The only way to really have the best of both worlds is to have a space heater keeping the entire room at a more acceptable temp.

If I'm misunderstanding how things are placed, feel free to correct me. Picture would help a lot to understand the placement of things.

[Apple_cafe]

Thank you for the info, I will get a different thermometer to see if mine are just off and try turning the hot side temps down a bit. I’m not familiar with forums like this so I don’t really know how to upload a photo via URL so I’ll do my best to explain it a little better.
The CHE thermostat probes are both inside the tub, poking in through holes I drilled. Both thermometers are facing out, against the plastic at the front of the tank.
The hole for the cooler CHE probe is a few inches directly above where I stuck the thermometer.
The hole for the hot side probe is a similar height but drilled into the back side of the tub. So it’s directly across the tub from the thermometer, a few inches up. The wires snake in and the probes themselves end up just a little bit higher than where the thermometers are placed.

No rack— the tub is sitting on a shelf in the corner of my office, with two out of the four sides against a wall, the other two open to the room. i got it because I heard they hold heat/humidity better than glass aquariums (which is what I started out with for the first day or so). I plan on upgrading him to a more permanent PVC enclosure once he outgrows this tub.

also, as I was doing a spot check tonight i saw that he finally pooped, in his hot hide no less. So that makes me feel a little better knowing that he’s digesting right.

I'm trying to create a picture in my mind of thermometer/probe placement. Do you mean that the thermostat probe is on the outside of the tub? Or do you mean they are both inside, but on opposite walls? Is the CHE central to the thermostat probe and thermometer or closer to one? Have you double checked with a different thermometer to make sure the one isn't reading off by several degrees?

If he is sleeping in the cool side hide most of the time, I feel like the ambient might be a little on the high side vs not hot enough. I wouldn't be super worried that it's way out of range either though, because he would likely be in his water dish to cool off or nose rubbing trying to escape.

Is this tub in a rack or just loose? It might be that the side the thermometer is on is cooling off more than the side the probe is on because of where it's placed in the room. For example, if you have it in a shelf where the length of the tub is against the back wall of the shelf, and that back wall is where the probe is? Having the tub with the cool end facing out is the most ideal for temp gradient, though it's not the best to observe him obviously. The only way to really have the best of both worlds is to have a space heater keeping the entire room at a more acceptable temp.

If I'm misunderstanding how things are placed, feel free to correct me. Picture would help a lot to understand the placement of things.

[Bogertophis]

This might help us to help you:
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...-Post-Pictures

Many here like to use a "temp. gun" to check temperatures in enclosures- & it never hurts to double check any readings that seem "off".

In general, just because you set a thermostat to control heat output to a certain level doesn't mean that it's actually achieving that- so that's why you need thermometers (or a temp. gun) to be sure of what is actually going on. It's also a common problem for thermostat probes to be installed in the wrong place or the wrong way so that your settings seem wrong. Frustrating for sure.

Also: https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...cement-for-UTH