Couple Of Questions

[justin81]

I'm going today to get all my stuff to set up my 29gal tank for my future BP. After spending some time at my LPS, I started to get a little confused on a few things. I came back here to read the tank set up threads, and the caresheet again, but still had a few questions.

1.) In the same room will be a 12gal Reef tank. The tank has blue moonlights (basically 2 blue LEDs) that are on all night. They are not very bright, but throw a shimmer on the walls in the room. I wanted to see if you think they will disturb the snake at night.

2.) Heat question - Because the snake will be housed in a room with a reef tank, the ambient air in the room is kept at 77 degrees. Knowing that the hot side needs to be 90, and ambient heat 80 I had had these two questions.

* Do you guys leave the UTH on 24/7? I know some who UTH only 24/7 says it keeps his hot side at 91 and the ambient temp at 82 even though the ambient room temp is only 74 with no drop of temp at night. I also read in the caresheet that they don't need temp drops at night which led me to believe this might be ok to do.

* If not, then I may need to get lighting as a secondary heat sorce to keep my temps @ 80 at night. I looked at a 65watt ceramic lamp, and was told the 60watt blue light would work for that.

Thanks in advance guys!

[Drew87]

OK lets see
- The lights from the other tank wont do any harm
- if you use a UTH i would get a thermostat to regulate the temps
- i used one back in the day and i put my temp gun on it and it was at 141 degrees.

Hope this helps

[justin81]

Thanks Drew.

I was not able to find a thermostat, but they had a turn dial zoo med rheostat. I decided to wait on the light and record my temps over the next week to see what they look like. At the moment the ambient room temp is 83 (it's 106 outside) with the vent to that room closed.

[Drew87]

O yea man dont worry i live in AZ i know all about the heat, and it does play HECK with your temps. I would say just keep a close eye on it you dont want to burn your snake. But other then that just look around im sure that you will find plenty of answers here on this great site. good luck and welcome

[West Coast Jungle]

A UTH needs to be controled by a thermostat and yes that can be on 24/7. Without a tstat there is no way to accuratly control temps and leaving it on 24/7 could lead to heat spikes that are way high.

[justin81]

After days and hours messing with the rheostat, I now have my the temps setup (well kind of). I have tried the temp probe in 3 different locations and get different readings in each location. My ambient room temps are 82 during the day, and 80 at night.

*Taped to UTH using aluminum tape - 88degrees at highest setting and will not get higher than 88.
*Inside the tank under the carpet in the middle of UTH - 103degrees at it's lowest setting and will not go lower than 103.
*Inside the tank in the hide on top of the carpet - 90degrees set in between low and medium.

I guess I'll leave my probe in the hide since belly heat is supposed to be at 90, and thats the reading I'm getting on top of the carpet. I know a lot of people don't like the probe inside the tank, but I don't see any other way I can do it. The other two ways read too high or too low.

[scotty99]

I,ve got my probe inside the enclosure under the newspaper. BP has not interfered with it as yet, so will leave it set up like that until there's a problem. There is always the worry of it moving though.

[justin81]

I just ordered a Ranco from reptilebasics.com.

After fooling with the rheostat for the rest of today I see what everyone is saying about them. I though the temps had become stable around 90, and an hour later I went back in and they were 96.5! I dialed it all the way to low and left it alone until now. I just checked it, and going from having it set between low and medium, and bumping it all the way down to low, I'm still at 95.6. From what I've read on here 95 is kind of the limit on how high the temps should be on my warm side. I just don't trust that thing. Hopefully I can return the rheostat and get my money back for it.

Other good news is I put the foil on the screen top and my humidity has been stable at 60% all day even in this Texas heat!!