Where would you place this?

[Smarion0006]

I put my little guy in a tub (but not in a rack) and I am having some trouble keeping the temps stable. I have a hot hide on a mat with a therm. and my temps are great-ish there, but my cold side needs some work. I raised the room temp to 74, but any more than that will KILL my electric budget. What I did was put the top on and put 3 small holes over the cold side and set up my heat lamp about 6 inches above those holes. I bought an acurite temp thing, but where do I sit it? My temp gun says that under the heat lamp holes gets to 93, but not sure if that is even accurate. Would you put the acurite under those holes or on the other part of the cold side to get the most accurate temps? What do you suggest?

[tbowman]

I would just put it anywhere on the cool side.

In my opinion the only downside to using a tub is the issue you're facing right now, maintaining ambient / cool end temperatures.

Rather than heating your whole house to 74, you could put the snake in one of the smaller rooms, and buy an oil filled radiator, and put that on its own thermostat. That way you could keep the rest of your house cooler and still keep the room that the snake is in warm. (unless this is something that you've already done)

[Smarion0006]

I would just put it anywhere on the cool side.

In my opinion the only downside to using a tub is the issue you're facing right now, maintaining ambient / cool end temperatures.

Rather than heating your whole house to 74, you could put the snake in one of the smaller rooms, and buy an oil filled radiator, and put that on its own thermostat. That way you could keep the rest of your house cooler and still keep the room that the snake is in warm. (unless this is something that you've already done)

I haven't thought about doing that. It's just finding a place we could put him, our place has an extremely odd setup. It is something we could try though. Since you answered, would you mind if I picked your brain a bit more? I have the hot hide over my mat on a therm, it's set to 93. The acurite is picking up 84. Is it just picking up the air temp in the hot hide and not the heat mat? It's one of those really nice black plastic ones. Thank you for taking the time to answer, btw.

[tbowman]

Probably yes. I wouldn't necessarily go off of what the acurite says as a reliable means of measuring the warm side. It's not designed to measure surface temps. It's basically telling you that the ambient temp in that hide is around 84 (which is fine). If you check the floor of that area with a temp gun and it's anywhere from 88-93 (94 and up is a little warm IMO) I'd say you're fine.

I should say that I don't have experience with hundreds of snakes as do some of the people on this site, and these are just my opinions.