Question about heat and a gladware container.

[Roundabout136]

Last night i was bored so i decided to make my bp a new house for her home. What i did was take a plastic gladware looking thing and cut a opening for her, she loves the thing already, going to this one on her warm side rather than her half log on the other side. My quesion is, will the heat from the heatlamp heat up the plastic to much and maybe cause melting or release some weird toxins?

*20 gallon terrerium, 95 degrees on the warm side, the plastic house is on the warm side, almost right underneath.*

Any help is appreciated, i'll get pictures when i get back home today.

[Smulkin]

You should be fine. If it got hot enough to do anything to that hide than your snake would be in bad bad shape. Just out of curiosity what are you measuring your temps with, humidity and are you using a UTH?

[Roundabout136]

I've got two measuring guages. One for temp, one for Humidity.

Probably around 10-15 bucks each.

I hear that digital is the way to go, but that's somewhat expensive and the guages seem to be doing a good job. What do you reccomend?

[Smulkin]

The $10 digital, hands down. While the analog humidity gages don't seem to be too inaccurate the bulk of the dial type thermometers sold in (pet) stores tend to be notorious for reading ~10F higher than actual temps.

[Roundabout136]

I shall look into that when i go down to the pet store for the next feeding.


Last night i also switched her substrate to paper towels. I used to use some fir bark but that stuff was making the cage somewhat different so i decided to loose the stuff and use some paper towels. I would have used news paper but we stopped the sunday paper.

Are paper towels alright to use? They would absorb water making humidity increase right? My humidity guage reads about 55 most of the time. I've been having a hard time with humidity though, i've now put a moist towell on top of the cage and that seems to work quite well. Any ideas?

[Smulkin]

Just be careful when dealing with thing intentionally left moist - mold/mildew can get a toehold in no time. You are using that to cover the screen lid? A lot of folks here have use saran wrap, plexiglass and transluscent ConTac paper to cover the lid with the same goal of maintaingin humidity in mind.

I know what you mean about newpaper - lucky my wife swoops on the subscription her office gets and occasionally i can get soem leftovers from the tech library here.

[Roundabout136]

Haha yea i just thought paper towels/news paper would be easier to clean up whatever she does. This morning i discovered some feces and water around, must have been an active night. So, clean up was easy.

I'm using a screened top for the terrerium, covered with that moist towell almost covering the whole top, but then a space for the heat lamp on one side. If i cover it with cerane(sp) wrap will that help humidity? Even without the towell?

I'll watch for mold and mildew, that's the last thing i need.

I guess i might as well ask you about heating and such, at night time i don't think my heating source is good enough. During the day i use a heat lamp that heats the cage perfectly, according to my guages. At night i turn on her heat pad, but i don't think its warm enough in her cage at night. Any ideas on a new heating source for this? I've read about heat tape and things like that, hm.

[frankykeno]

Just an idea for you. We use the Acu-Rite from WalMart (Lowe's and Home Depot sell something similar under a different brand name). It retails for about $12.00 plus batteries (AAA). You can find it usually in outdoor thermometers/hygrometer area of the stores (or gardening).

I've got mine set up so the actual unit is on the cool side, the probe line goes out of the tub then back in and the probe is tucked into the warm side hide. That way I get a cool side reading, a warm side reading and overall humidity. Pretty good for a digital under $20.00! If this explanation makes no sense (I really do need more coffee this morning) I'll happily take some pictures to illustrate.




~~Jo~~

[Roundabout136]

I understand fully Frankykeno. Does the cord unwind to a pretty far distance? If i were to set that on the cold side the wire would have to streatch a good 2.5 feet to reatch the warm side.

[JLC]

I've got one of those in a 20gal long tank as well. The cord is plenty long to reach any part of the tank you need it to.