CHE making screen lid too hot?

[Barotar]

Hello,
I have a 4 year old male BP. I adopted him 2 weeks ago. I really thought I had everything sorted out before bringing him home, but I misunderstood the ambient temp requirements. So, at room temp and that my home is on the cooler side, the air temps for the snake are too cool.

I guess I should mention what kind of enclosure he is in first. He is in a 40 (maybe a 50?) gallon tank with a metal screen lid. I have 3 sides covered, as well as the screen lid, except where the CHE lamp sits. I have a large UTH with thermostat, two hides, a large water bowl and aspen bedding.

So, since realizing the ambient temps were too cool at just room temp, I bought the CHE. It is on a dimmer. I have successfully raised the ambient temps to 83 degrees.

However, I am extremely worried the snake will burn his nose on the metal screen lid directly under the CHE. My snake hides during the daytime but is out and about each night cruising around. He easily can stretch up and touch the top of the screen lid. This means he will surely scorch his pretty nose because of the intense heat.

What can I do? I've done everything I thought was possible, aside from completely ditching the tank and putting him into a tub with a lid. I really don't want to put him into a tub, I have this BP and my two corn snakes as pets only and really love being able to see them. But, I know the health of the snake comes first, so I will go the tub route if I need to.

Thank you for any advice!

[KMG]

It is really not a good idea to rest the fixtures of bulbs or ches on the screen. It is not good to move them around plus it is not very safe. I suggest using a lamp stand so the che stays in place and you can remove the screen without moving any fixtures.

Not seeing your setup I can really only guess with the picture I have created in my head. I would not think the snake would burn its nose but that depends on how hot the screen is really getting. Having a IR Temp gun would be really handy right now.

I am worried about the hotspot the che is creating inside the tank. A che is more like a spot light style heat bulb instead of a flooding style. This means that it has a concentrated beam of heat pounding a spot on the tank floor and can very easily get to hot. Again a IR Temp gun would help make sure this is not happening. You may need to switch to a bulb. I used to have a 40gal in a room that stayed 68. I had a 100W(on a stand with several inches of standoff) on one side and a regular 60w bulb on the other to keep the temps correct. You may also need to do something like that.

Check out these. http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-Med-Reptil...med+lamp+stand
I have used them for several years and they work very well.

[Mr. Misha]

From my personal experience, as long as the CHE bulb isn't touching the screen (which it shouldn't anyways), the screen shouldn't heat up.

I started out with a glass tank and never had a problem with having a dome with a CHE sitting on just the screen. You can always touch the screen to see how hot it gets.

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