blackness on heat emitter

[olaf]

I have a heat emitter and when I came home from school today, I noticed that there was a blackish brown color on part of it. I put in a loft over the emitter with a screen section to make a hot spot. The heat emitter has a cage around it, so it can't have been him touching it and getting burnt. It's on a thermostat, but was set with the probe underneath it, so it wouldn't ever go off(it's a complex setup). I was thinking that it could be a burn mark from the paint or whatever they put on it. I don't think it was from feces, I checked underneath the heat emitter and there was nothing there. Has anyone ever even heard of this happening before? I appreciate the input.

[ErikH]

Do you have to move the heat emitter to open the enclosure? Could you have set it down on top of/next to something and scorched/melted it?

[olaf]

No, the only other thing that I can think of, (which now I am thinking may be it), is that I have plastic leaves hanging around up there. One of them may have slipped through the caging around and melted one of the branch parts.

[ErikH]

Sounds possible. Is there a burnt plastic smell? Some types of plastic/pvc can give off some pretty toxic fumes when burned. Make sure you aren't filling the enclosure with something that might be harmful to you or your snake.

[olaf]

Yeah, that's it. I looked at one of the ends of one of the branches and it looked like it was melted off. The only weird thing though is that I can't find the rest of the branch. Oh well, it'll either show up, but if it doesn't, it'll just be like a few of my other things.

[olaf]

Sounds possible. Is there a burnt plastic smell? Some types of plastic/pvc can give off some pretty toxic fumes when burned. Make sure you aren't filling the enclosure with something that might be harmful to you or your snake.

It has some smell, but can't tell what it's from. Should I take Olaf out for a while and try to air it out?

[alexrls]

could it be a water drop? like ur snake was wet and slide over it? or when u mist it landed on it?

[olaf]

could it be a water drop? like ur snake was wet and slide over it? or when u mist it landed on it?

I've sprayed water on it to boost the humidity not knowing it could be bad, but I've done that many times. Last time I did it was a couple days ago, I think.

[olaf]

I'm getting another snake in a few days, so I've got sufficient housing. Should I move him into another cage for a while, or until I get the plastic off? And just for future reference, if I do do that, would I have to clean the cage again before putting the next snake in there, or would it be fine?

[ErikH]

I am sorry it took so long to get back to you. If you have another space available, you may want to move him for a day, but if you don't think the smell is bad, it may be fine to leave things as they are. How much plastic is on the emitter? If there is only a little bit, it will burn itself off anyway.