Heat light question

[JodanOrNoDan]

Yes I realize it's hard for the humidity to stay up with the heat lamps. I currently have him in a 20gal long.
The warm end fluctuates between 82-86. The cool end stays around 75.
and that is the ambient air temps.

Thank you for the additional info, I will now leave you to the tank pros since I use racks.

[FlynnTheBP]

ding ding ding. It is important to know what kind of thermometers you are using and where they are located in the tank.

Lamps are fine as a heat source, but most people find that it becomes nearly impossible to keep your humidity up.

Don't be scared of UTH's. They fail very rarely and with a good thermostat, your snake is perfectly safe.

I use two lamps attached to a heat/humidity sensor and a heat pad. Since I have a screen top I use a fogger, also attached to the sensor, and I cut some plexiglass pieces and set them on top of the screen to keep the humidity up. The whole set up was pretty inexpensive and it works like a charm. You can find most of the stuff I used cheap on craigslist, at reptile expos, online, etc.

[Finnsmom]

Ok. I am going to try the UTH. I just got home from work- and his tank is pretty cool- our house stay on the cool side- so apparently that heat lamp isn't heating it up much poor guy, I feel bad now.
I am going to go to Walmart tonight- could someone give me an idea of what thermostat they may have for me to get? And are they easy to hook up to the UTH? I'm not good with things like that...

[FlynnTheBP]

Ok. I am going to try the UTH. I just got home from work- and his tank is pretty cool- our house stay on the cool side- so apparently that heat lamp isn't heating it up much poor guy, I feel bad now.
I am going to go to Walmart tonight- could someone give me an idea of what thermostat they may have for me to get? And are they easy to hook up to the UTH? I'm not good with things like that...

If you have a Petsmart, Petco, any other pet store nearby, they will sell reliable ZooMed thermostats, which I've always used. Otherwise, I'm sure any run-of-the-mill thermostat will likely work fine.

[Kaorte]

Hmm I'm not sure if Walmart will carry anything that will work like you need it. There is a pretty inexpensive thermostat on Amazon, I believe it's called a jumpstart? Hopefully someone else can come in with a link.

If your house is cool, you might still need the lamp with the UTH because a UTH will do little to increase the ambient air temp.

What thermometers are you using? If you can post a picture we can help figure out what you need a bit better.

Don't worry about the snake being a little on the cool side. They do better in cool temps than they do in higher temps. Just don't feed the snake until you get your temps in order.




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[Sonny1318]

Yes I realize it's hard for the humidity to stay up with the heat lamps. I currently have him in a 20gal long.
The warm end fluctuates between 82-86. The cool end stays around 75.
and that is the ambient air temps.

I run tanks, 20 longs. I use either 40 or 60 watt zoo med red night bulbs depending on the season, and where the tank is on my shelves. Yeah, it's a bit more work. And I also have to use humid hides. But it's very doable if you have the passion/time. I'd be more concerned about baking the little guys with to much bulb wattage. I have no trouble with hotspots or ambient temps. But then again my home is always at around 73 to 74 degrees, so please take that into consideration with my two cents. And I don't provide belly heat and like my hot spot around 88 degrees. Hope that helps some what.

[PitOnTheProwl]

that is the ambient air temps.

Surface temperatures are more important.

[Finnsmom]

Ok. Thank you! That helps me a lot. Since our house does stay on the cooler side- I think I'll try the 75 watt red bulb. Or the moonlight bulb? That way it can stay on at night. And I won't go with belly heat. Right now his humidity is not very good because all I have in his tank is a water bowl and a cardboard box and paper towels. ( he has mites ) so I'm battling those.
But when they are gone-hopefully soon- I will put his substrate back in and his wood hides and some spagnum moss and that will help with the humidity.

[Streller]

Will definitely be helpful once his mites have cleared up to get some proper substrate in there as well as some moss. I don't know how much it will help, but you could try getting a small plastic bowl/pot - I'll try to leave a picture below of what I mean, directly underneath the heat guard for the bulb, that will evaporate fairly fast because it's a fairly small volume of water, and it might help with the humidity in the warm end; just might need to be changed over often, and also wedged in there too, because the python will just romp around the cage and probably knock it over if not.

Example of what I mean is in the spoiler, anything that size, really.

[EL-Ziggy]

If you're still looking for an inexpensive but reliable uth and thermostat I'd go with an Ultratherm uth and the hydrofarm thermostat. The Ultratherm uths don't get as hot as the Zoomed units and are less likely to burn your snake even in the event of a thermostat failure. I have Hydrofarm thermostats on all my setups. I've used these products for a few years now with no issues. I also use a 75w IR heat bulb to boost my ambient temps but I'm thinking of using rhps as a sole heat source on my new enclosures. There are nicer thermostats like Herpstat and Vivarium Electronics and some keepers love them but they're a little pricier.

http://www.reptilebasics.com/ultratherm-heat-pads

https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-MTP...arm+thermostat