ANOTHER Ambient Temp Thread...with a twist!! :)

[Kona's Daddy]

Heya, guys and gals.

Okay - I'm starting yet ANOTHER ambient temps issue thread...but my situation is a bit different...so PLEASE be gentle.

I built my vivarium about 1.5 years ago. It's made of high-grade oak plywood and plexiglass. Flooring is sheet linolium (sp?) that has been silicone sealed. The heat pads are under the flooring, on top of the oak plywood. The lighting is via 18" flourescent 'day bulbs.' Substrate is cypress mulch.

The intent...when I built it...was to have a 4-stack condo to house my corn snakes. I have since transitioned to 50/50 (2 corns and 2 BPs). (Photos of my condo attached.)

I have all four Intellitemp heat pads working off of one thermostat...and I just plus-up the bedding in the corn cages to raise the floor a bit and keep the hotspot at around the requisite 82-84 degrees.

The BP vivs are up top...and I'm doing AWESOME with keeping their hotspot at 89-91 degrees, constantly.

During the day, the flourescent lights I use put their ambient vivarium temp at around 82-85 degrees.

At night, though...the ambient temp goes down to somewhere around 71-73 degrees.

Given the construction of my tank, it's not set up for RHPs or heat lamps. I suppose I COULD put down another heat pad on the cool side of each BP vivarium, and run them off of a second thermostat...but I'm just not sure if it's needed.

Both BPs are easy going, great feeders, hide all day, and come out to play at night. From everything I've read, they both seem to behave as a BP should...but I don't want them to suffer in silence, either.

Am I being to paranoid about the fluctuation in ambient temps between day and night...or is this (in your collective opinion) something I need to fix ASAP?

ANY AND ALL sound advice is appreciated. Thanks for your time, folks.

KD

[norwegn113]

your enclosures are beautiful, nice job!

[3skulls]

Nice job!
I think a couple if options would be, like you said another heat pad on the cool end (have it come on when the light goes out). Heat tape on the back to up the temps (don't know how it would work with the wood).

Kitedemon on here runs Deep Blue LED lights at night to keep his temps up.
If he doesn't post, send him an email.

Or you could heat the room the stack is in.

[bx718]

Wow that's an awesome set up you got going there. Would love to know how it's built if you don't mind posting a thread on it......
Hopeful someone here can help you out on your situation by the way.

[Kona's Daddy]

Thanks for the kind words about the DIY project, ya'll. I'm pretty proud of it...especially considering I've never built a piece of 'furniture' before.

It's made, completely, of oak plywood. Took me about two days to build (and six trips to Lowes to get all the materials i wound up needing).

The setup was PERFECT for my cornsnakes...with no worries about ambient temps to be concerned about. Now that I've taken the turn toward BPs, I need some expert chime-ins to help me figure out if I have to 'tweak' it for the new condo tenants.

If ya'll are EVER inclined to build one - go for it. It was a ton of fun to fabricate it, and the pride of ownership is through the roof.M

That said ------ MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE!!!!!

I found that out the hard way.

The plus side being - I've got enough spare material to build a single 36" x 18" x 15" vivarium.....

[norwegn113]

technically, unless you plan on breeding your temps should stay pretty consistant both day and night. you will naturally get a slight variation at night due to the drop in room temps, but I would say that an overall ambient air temp of 73 is too cold for ball pythons. I come up with 3 possible fixes ( but of coarse theses are not the only ways as im sure other people will offer good advice.) (1) Raise the room temp. were the enclosure is located with some sort of heater, (2) add another set of heat mats on the cool side to raise the temps of the cool side obviously you will need a thermostat with that or (3) buy a 3/4" thick round ceiling fan box (often called a pancake box in the trades) a porcelain lamp fixture , a length of heavy duty lamp cord and a plug end. mount the electrical box in the desired location , attach the lamp cord to the lamp fixture and attach the lamp fixture to the electrical box drill a 1/4" hole in the back of the enclosure fish the lamp cord through the hole and attach the plug end. plug into a thermostat. Add a night bulb ( probably about 50 or 75 watt ) You can make a bulb cover out of some 1/4"×1/4" hardware cloth and mount it over the bulb. this is probably the least expensive option of the 3. hope that helps?

[kitedemon]

I would just pop in LEDs deep blue will have the least impact on pythons in general (other snakes may react differently as do most lizards) LEDs that can be plugged into walls (110V-220V AC) produce about 90ºF-95ºF surface temps. Most FL lights produce around 95-100ºF surface temps. (you can quickly check yours) the blue leds over night have little to no impact on pythons (they don't see much blue end of the spectrum). I would expect a drop in ambient over night but much less dramatic than you are currently seeing. It is easy and very efficient.

Radiant heat sources have little to no direct effect on air temps so adding radiant sources (Radiant heat panels or Radiant heat tape aka flexwatt, aka UTH ) will not solve the problem with out mucking about with thermal mass and heat syncs.

I use something along these lines... This is just an example the prices are wildly variable so poke around some.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Blue-57-LED-A...ht_4013wt_1280

They are very bright so I found that pointing them away from the floor and I have used plants to obscure some of the output.

Fast Cheap and simple.

[Kona's Daddy]

I would just pop in LEDs deep blue will have the least impact on pythons in general (other snakes may react differently as do most lizards) LEDs that can be plugged into walls (110V-220V AC) produce about 90ºF-95ºF surface temps. Most FL lights produce around 95-100ºF surface temps. (you can quickly check yours) the blue leds over night have little to no impact on pythons (they don't see much blue end of the spectrum). I would expect a drop in ambient over night but much less dramatic than you are currently seeing. It is easy and very efficient.

Radiant heat sources have little to no direct effect on air temps so adding radiant sources (Radiant heat panels or Radiant heat tape aka flexwatt, aka UTH ) will not solve the problem with out mucking about with thermal mass and heat syncs.

I use something along these lines... This is just an example the prices are wildly variable so poke around some.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Blue-57-LED-A...ht_4013wt_1280

They are very bright so I found that pointing them away from the floor and I have used plants to obscure some of the output.

Fast Cheap and simple.

I had no idea that LED lights kicked out that kind of 'heat.'

I've seen them in Lowes, and thought they looked great...but they were listed as 'Cool' with respect to operating temp, so I didn't even think of using them. Adding an LED strip with deep blue lights sounds like a great idea, if it'll kick up the ambient temps AND not mess with their day/night light cycle.

Sounds like I've got some shopping to do!!!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for the help. I can't tell ya how much I appreciate the time you took to help me out!

KD

[kitedemon]

Cool, below your body temp? They do not feel hot but warm when you touch them.


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[royal constrictor]

Only thing with the third option is it will suck out humidity like crazy.... Getting a second heat pad will only raise surface and not ambient temps.... Getting a small utility/space heater would probably be best just to raise the entire room temp a few degrees... They're fairly cheap at a Walmart or Fred Meyers(20-50$)