New setup

[AMBiEN22]

So just bought a ten gallon to house my new baby ball in. got a uth a hide a water bowl and some nice substrate forget the name holds humidity great...maybe too great. The uth seems custom like to ribbon heaters if that makes sense... Got an accurite therm and humidity digital on hot spot humidity reads like seventy five... Temp seventy. This uth does not adhere to the tank so its on top of polystyrene and under tank. Had it plugged into rheostat for a test but could not achieve high enough temps. Plugging it directly into wall to see if temps go up ambient room temp is average sixty eight..... Feel like I might need to get some better equipment before I can bring my snake home....

Will post more details after class... Only can swype text so much on this droid x before bed.

[AMBiEN22]

Comments and recommendations appreciated.

[Alexandra V]

Your temps are definitely not hight enough. Hot side should be 88-90 and cool side should be 78-80 and should never drop below 75. Ever.

Humidity should be around 50%-60%, and should be bumped up during the shed cycle to around 70% - 80%. If you're having trouble getting the room warm enough, you could invest in a small space heater from wal-mart.

As for the UTH, you should definitely have something to control it with, either a rheostat or a thermostat, because they can easily get hot enough to burn your snake. If the UTH was only bringing up the temperature to 75, there's either something wrong with the heater or something wrong with your thermometer.

To make your heater more efficient, you could tape it on with aluminum tape, as it is heat resistant and adheres very well to glass and other shiny surfaces.

[AMBiEN22]

Is an uth heater enough? Seems like if I get a che it might warm things up and lower humidity.

[Alexandra V]

Is an uth heater enough? Seems like if I get a che it might warm things up and lower humidity.

Yes, UTH's are definitely enough. I've never had to use more than a UTH. Ceramic heat emitters work well too, but ball pythons (like many snakes) will benefit more from belly heat than back heat. Also, unless you're getting condensation on the glass from the humidity, there's nothing to worry about. Humidity is not harmful if it's higher than 50% (in the wild they'll encounter humidity as high as 100% sometimes). It only gets dangerous when the humidity is too low, as this can cause a respiratory infection.

Many people struggle with keeping humidity up, so if I were you I would be thankful that I had enough, and just leave it at that.

[AMBiEN22]

Yeah I was worried about the humidity now I am worried about maintaining heat... Could you recommend a good uth and a decent thermostat? Going to try to return this zoo med rheostat for twenty bucks and this crap uth for another twenty... My tank is accrylic so I feel a good uth that adheres would help with heat...also if a space heater is out of the question and ambien air will always be sixty eight will a lamp be necessary... Then again a better question would be can a uth put off enough heat in that aambien air temp?

[snakesRkewl]

If the room is 68 degrees then a UTH probably won't get the ambient temps you want andwill probably have to use a small ceramic on top of the uth.
I'd use the rheostat for the ceramic and pick up a cheap thermostat to control the uth.
If you want to save some money buy flexwatt from reptilebasics or the beanfarm and wire it to a cord and plug that into a thermostat instead of a store bought prebuilt heat pad.

11x12 flexwatt = $3.60 a foot VS $20+ for a prebuilt zoo-med or Zilla heat pad or other store bought.
With an 11X12 you can cut it down to cover 1/2 of the bottom of the tank which will help some with your ambient temps and still give the snake room to cool off on the cool end.

[AMBiEN22]

Zoo med products scare me a little seem kind of run of the mill products made to be mass produced and don't keep in mind that different brands will be used with them. This is what I plan to try, input is appreciated. Get an uth from zilla I think the brand is called and try to find a decent red heat lamp. Ceramic would be awesome with no heat admission but I'm thankful to have high humidity don't want to sacrifice it. So the question that I propose is simple with a zilla adhesive uth a red heat lamp combined with a thermostat I feel I can achieve appropriate heat..... Here lies the question where can or what brand can I purchase a thermometer that will keep track of both the uth and lamp to achieve desired temps?

I've seen a lot of people use helix and herp stat? Is this over kill for a ten gallon keep in mind I feel this will be a go od investment as the snake only ages and gets bigger. Also in my sixty eight degree weather over kill might be a neccesity...

Again I appologize about spelling and grammer but typing on a droid gets annoying lol

[snakesRkewl]

IMO Zilla brand is no different in quality than zoo-med, both are way more expensive than flexwatt.

One or two probed thermometers is always a good thing to have.
Most any garden store, walmart, home depot and others sell indoor/outdoor thermometers.
Accurite seems to be fairly popular.

Having a quality thermostat is never over kill although most people with just a ten gallon tank go with cheaper on/off thermostats.
Repti-temp 500R, Hydrofarm, zilla all make cheaper thermostats.
Johnsons controls, Herpstat, Helix to name a few are your better quality thermostats.

[Alexandra V]

Zilla and Zoo-Med are okay quality but way overpriced. I don't know the brand name (there was none on the bag) but at a local reptile store I picked up a green colored UTH that was apparently meant to be used inside the cage. Obviously I don't use it inside the cage, but it's not sticky so I can just tape it on and then if I ever decide to remove it I can.

As for the thermostats, I'm personally a huge fan of Herpstat, but you could also go for Helix which is really good or Hydrofarm. Any of the ones mentioned above.