thermostat help!!

[maausen]

So how I have my tank setup is a glass tank with a UTH on the bottom outside of the tank. On the inside of the tank bottom is a repticarpet which my herpstat probe is sitting on then about an inch of substrate and then my thermometer probe on the surface of the substrate. The thermometer reads 90 degrees when my thermostat is set at 98. I am worried my little guy could burrow down a bit to the hottest spot and get hurt... Any suggestions? Am I worrying too much?

[KMG]

Your probe goes outside the tank between the tank bottom and uth. Move it and then set the temp accordingly.

You want the glass directly above the uth to be within range at every level from the bottom through the substrate.

[Eric Alan]

As they say, a picture is worth 1000 words. And a crayon drawing of how to properly set-up a UTH/thermostat/thermometer? Priceless...

[maausen]

As they say, a picture is worth 1000 words. And a crayon drawing of how to properly set-up a UTH/thermostat/thermometer? Priceless...

Thanks a lot! I have it now set up like the priceless photo! my thermostat is still set about 8 degrees higher then the actual temp. Does this sound reasonable?

[jclaiborne]

It is probably accurate for where you are measuring the temp from. You are trying to use a UTH to heat through carpet, and 1 inch of substrate so you will have a significal loss from that. If you put the probe at the glass level it will more than likely read 98 so if your snake burrows down under all of that there is a chance he will be exposed to what the mat is set to. My advice lose the repti-carpet, all its good for is harboring bacteria, thin out your substrate layer, (I think most mat mfg's reccomend less than 1/2inch but you will have to double check on that) and dial in your temps, you will see a lot less loss at that point.