Quick night time temp question from a new BP owner

[OsirisRa32]

Well...I finally got a snake!! lol been wanting one for years...juvie male pinstripe...I feel like I just had a kid LOL

Anyways..got a quick question and figured this website would be the top place to ask...

I live in a basement and its got rather a poor A/C/ heating system..I also cant sleep with it too warm...I have set up nice therm gradient across my 10 gal tank...but at night I have noticed the gradient goes out the window....Orion's hide is right over the UTH I have...

Are there any good recommendations for methods to keep the rest of his tank a more moderate temp thru the night...I realize there is supposed to be about a 5 degree drop once "night" hits...but so far the first two evenings its been more like a 10-15 degree drop due to the damn basement.

A friend of mine recommended a ceramic heating unit..but they are rather expensive and quite frankly scare the crap out of me in regards to the heat they put off, price and me being a new snake owner.. I also have looked into a 75 watt Zilla Night Black Heat or a 60 watt Zoo-Med Nightlight (the red kind)...I am hesitant to provide too much light of any color during the night so as to not throw off his cycles...but a slight glow wouldnt be too bad as I am a night owl and would love to be able to see him slithering around at night too...

Any advice/help is much appreciated...

-Webb

[The Serpent Merchant]

Welcome to the site!

Night drops are not needed or recommended... You should keep your cage with a hot side between 88-92 degrees and a cool side between 78-82 degrees 24/7. No part of the cage should ever get above 95 or below 75 degrees.

Does your heating pad have a thermostat? if not you need to get one ASAP. check out this thread: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...t-Thermometers

What are your current cage temperatures? What are you using to heat the cage? and what are you using to measure cage temperatures with?

I would recommend that you read this thread as well: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ius)-Caresheet

[devildog_dk]

For a consistent gradient you really should only have 1 heat source; that being the UTH. The rest of the gradient is by keeping the room at an appropriate temperature. My suggestion is to just suck it up and get a space heater or something to raise the room temperature. If you raise the room temp then your ambient goes up. You don't have to raise room temp all the way to your target ambient in the enclosure, as the being enclosed with a UTH will raise it a bit.

For reference I'm in the same boat as you: I just naturally feel hot all the time (especially when sleeping), but I deal with it and our house is always either heated or cooled to roughly 78-79 degrees, which keeps all our snake's ambient temps right where they should be, cause of the slight raise I mentioned.

Edit: there needs to be some sort of regulation on your UTH as well, a quality thermostat is ideal but in a pinch a normal lamp dimmer or rheostat will suffice. If you measure a temp of 90 on your hot side on top of substrate then the UTH is probably in the range of 100 (if using aspen or any loose shredded substrate). If using paper towels or newspaper then it'd be a good bit lower but still regulating the heat source is critical.

[OsirisRa32]

Thanks for the links Aaron...

Currently I have a UTH pad I am using to provide belly heat under his hide...the rest of the cage I am heating with a 60 watt daylight heat blub...the heat and humidity at the end were his hide is hovers around 78-82 with 40-50 % humidity...the opposite end where his water is is 82-88 with 50-60% humidity...I am monitoring with simple heat and humidity low tech gauges about mid way up the tank sides on the inside.

[mercerasian]

First of all, you should definitely get a heat lamp to heat your ball python's cage more adequately. If you're on a budget, you can do like me and find 8.5" Clamp lights at home depot or lowe's and 75w infrared light bulbs from petsmart and it's a little cheaper than the name brand heat lamp fixtures available in the pet store. It's like $8 instead of $16+. You would also want to buy a rheostat/meter (aka table top light dimmer) to be able to control the amount of heat from the lamp. These run about $10-20 (table top dimmer being cheaper than zoo med's rheostat).

By the way, that light bulb can be either infrared or night, either works fine as long as it's not a visible (white) light bulb.

[The Serpent Merchant]

Ok, here is the problem... Heating pads don't change the temperature of the air inside the cage, so you need a probed thermometer to measure how hot the hot side of your cage is. Further without a thermostat to regulate a heating pad they can and will get hot enough to kill your snake. You need to get a thermostat as soon as possible. stay away from the junk sold in petstores, There are good thermostats in all price ranges recommended in this thread: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...t-Thermometers

[The Serpent Merchant]

For a consistent gradient you really should only have 1 heat source; that being the UTH. The rest of the gradient is by keeping the room at an appropriate temperature. My suggestion is to just suck it up and get a space heater or something to raise the room temperature. If you raise the room temp then your ambient goes up. You don't have to raise room temp all the way to your target ambient in the enclosure, as the being enclosed with a UTH will raise it a bit.

For reference I'm in the same boat as you: I just naturally feel hot all the time (especially when sleeping), but I deal with it and our house is always either heated or cooled to roughly 78-79 degrees, which keeps all our snake's ambient temps right where they should be, cause of the slight raise I mentioned.

I'm sorry but there is no reason to heat an entire room when using glass tanks... tubs yes but never for tanks. And only using a single heat source is not the way to generate a consistent heat gradient... using thermostats and however many heat sources that are required is.

using a UTH along with an infrared heat lamp is honestly the best way to heat a glass tank. set the UTH to create the basking temperature of 88-92 then use the heat lamp to maintain the air temperature between 78-82 degrees.

[devildog_dk]

I'm sorry but there is no reason to heat an entire room when using glass tanks... tubs yes but never for tanks. And only using a single heat source is not the way to generate a consistent heat gradient... using thermostats and however many heat sources that are required is.

using a UTH along with an infrared heat lamp is honestly the best way to heat a glass tank. set the UTH to create the basking temperature of 88-92 then use the heat lamp to maintain the air temperature between 78-82 degrees.

Yea you're right, I skimmed over where he said 10 gal tank... for some reason I registered that as a tub.

[OsirisRa32]

cool thanks for the info and help!

Any specific UTH I should look for...the one I bought is a 4watt tropical model and honestly after 3 days on its only warm to the touch both from inside the tank and from outside underneath. not sure its a controllable model..

LOL sorry for the additional questions...this is a huge learning process as its my first snake...

Additionally where should the temp probes be located and whats the best way to attach them?

[The Serpent Merchant]

All UTHs work the same, and all UTHs MUST be regulated by a thermostat.

For a 10 gallon here is what I would get to heat it:

UTH: http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...AvailInUS%2FNo (Small size)

Thermostat: Any of these 3

1. Budget: http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-MTPR.../dp/B000NZZG3S

2. Mid-Range: http://www.reptilebasics.com/ranco-etc-111000-pre-wired

3. Best: http://spyderrobotics.com/home/products.html

Heat lamp: http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...AvailInUS%2FNo (100 watt)

Lamp dimmer for heat lamp: http://www.homedepot.com/buy/lutron-...l#.UKCFLqUkKRk

Thermometer from walmart ($12)