Heating Question...

[dreese88]

I'm picking up 2 new balls today and was setting up their tubs last night. They're 34 qt tubs heated with 4" flexwatt. Right over the FW the heat is fine, but it doesn't seem like there is any gradient what so ever. Probably 3-4" away from the FW and its at room temp. So what do I need to do to get a proper gradient?

[starmom]

Do you have a rack that the tubs live in?
If not, are the tubs on the floor?
What's the temp of the tub away from the flex watt?

[Gloryhound]

If the tubs are free standing (ie. not in a rack) and your room is cool or drafty you are going to have a very difficult time getting the proper gradient. If they are in a rack and the room is below 70 degrees you are still going to have a hard time getting the right gradient. (I keep my snake room at 75 degees.) You may need to add a second strip of flexwatt. A lot of people frown on using it, but I like the 11" flexwatt on my larger tubs. Also you can meet the half way idea if you run 4" flex watt the full length of the longest part of the bottom of the tub or adding some side heat to the tub. You may need to look at something like that to cover half of the bottom of the whole tub. Also where is your temp probe for your T-stat and where are you taking measurement and with what? How many holes do you have in the tub and are they opposite the heat? Some pictures of the set up would probably help people better see where issues are and environmental conditions of the room the tubs are in would be nice as well.

[dreese88]

Well the tubs aren't in their permanent homes yet as I'm at my parents house right now working on them. Yes there are holes away from the heat..Didn't think about that. Stat probe is on the heat tape, measuring with an IR thermometer and accurite with the probe on heat tape and unit on cool end. Oh and the tubs are free standing. The room they're going into has pretty stable temps. These are qt tubs and its the first time I've set up a tub...not as easy as everyone says

[JohnNJ]

If they are in a rack and the room is below 70 degrees you are still going to have a hard time getting the right gradient. (I keep my snake room at 75 degees.)

Gloryhound - please do not take offense at what I'm about to say. It is not aimed at you personally. It's just my observation of this forum as a whole.

OK. I have seen post after post urging the use of tubs because it is easier than trying to get temps and humidity correct in a glass tank. With tanks you have to insulate the sides, wrap the screen with aluminum foil, have a UTH with a t-stat, sphagnum moss, Acu-Rite digital thermometer, etc., etc.

Now someone has a problem with a tub. Now we add more flexwatt for under or side heat, add another t-stat, tub must be in a rack, air holes in the wrong place and the room has to be heated above 75 degrees.

Do you guys have any idea how ridiculous this sounds? You're making people nuts. I can see this amount of effort for a breeder or someone with dozens of very expensive snakes but for the average person with a $20 snake, this is way overkill. And you almost had me convinced that if I didn't get everything exactly right my poor snake would be miserable. :cens0r:

My point is that it's great that there are so many people willing to help a newb out with all this advice but it's gone way over the top. Temper it a little.

Newb says "My setup is not perfect."
Expert says "Snake healthy and eating? No problem. Minor tweak here and here. Done." Cost=pennies, not HUNDREDS $$$.

Sorry about the soapbox. Perhaps I need a break.

[JKExotics]

If your keeping those guys outside of a rack in a normal room your best bet to keep the temps stable is to hook up the flexwatt to a proportional thermostat (Helix or Herpstat) and control at least the warm spot that way.

[starmom]

Here's the deal as I see it: There are many ways to keep a snake healthy and eating and ALL of those ways need to take into account budget, desires, and external environment.

Rack systems are great for people who don't have a lot of space to stack reptile cages and who want to minimize housing costs.
Tanks are great for people who don't want to spend the money on reptile cages but still want to view their snakes when they come out.

All housing for snakes require tweaking and expense given that all external environment are different. There is NO RIGHT WAY THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE!

That said, all we members can do is to give the advice, based on our own experiences, as clearly as we can. In the end, it is up to the poster to ask the questions and sift through the responses and try to determine what methodology will work the very best for them.

Typically, healthy and eating snakes do not have a forum member posting that they need help. Typically, when a poster needs help, the issue lies within the snake's environment. Typically the issue is too big of an enclosure or not having a thermostat. Typically, these solutions will cost money.

I, for one, will try to never be cavalier with the information that I post regarding the best life for an animal. I don't care if the fix is a 2 dollar hide or a hundred dollar thermostat; these are the costs you get into when you choose to adopt any animal.

Perhaps, John, you do need a break from posting. Perhaps your time might be better spent using the search button and really reading the responses of the members here. What might come into focus is the caring for these animals that we all have and the desire to help others with their husbandry skills

Just my thoughts. It's all good. Peace.

[dreese88]

It's no worry...I had just never set a tub up and knew that it would be cheaper than setting up 2 tanks. Just didnt see the heating and humidity (~73 %) being this big of an issue

[dr del]

Hi,

If you don't mind the little extra reading effort I will try and interject points in the place that made me think of them for clarity.

Gloryhound - please do not take offense at what I'm about to say. It is not aimed at you personally. It's just my observation of this forum as a whole.

OK. I have seen post after post urging the use of tubs because it is easier than trying to get temps and humidity correct in a glass tank. With tanks you have to insulate the sides, wrap the screen with aluminum foil, have a UTH with a t-stat, sphagnum moss, Acu-Rite digital thermometer, etc., etc.

Now someone has a problem with a tub. Now we add more flexwatt for under or side heat, add another t-stat, tub must be in a rack, air holes in the wrong place and the room has to be heated above 75 degrees.

It really isn't that big a difference between the two - both need the thermostat,thermometer and UTH for example.

Glass isn't a very good insulator of heat but is generally rigid and formed in easily clad shapes so the insulation for heat and humidity is fairly easy to do - tubs are slightly better insulators for heat but, if the environment is cool enough, that won't make enough of a difference. But their shape and opening methods make applying external insulation a lot trickier compared to the glass tank.

I live in an old draughty house in a country known for being cold and wet - if my room is above 75f someone has had the heater on. 68f is a more usual temp for me.

So I knew I would need extra heating on the cool side and planned for it from day one.

Now in the last paragraph most of the examples you gave are either/ or options;

Room above 75f

Or

Add more flexwatt - controlled by either another thermostat or through a dimmer connected to the first one.

Or

Tub in a rack - this is effectively just insulating the tub if you use closed racks. In an open rack system it doesn't really make any difference aside from the heat rising from the tubs below possibly - never used this system so not sure on how much of a difference that makes.

The placement of the holes is just part of the tub setup - but if they are in the wrong place/ level they can mess things about a bit.

Do you guys have any idea how ridiculous this sounds? You're making people nuts. I can see this amount of effort for a breeder or someone with dozens of very expensive snakes but for the average person with a $20 snake, this is way overkill. And you almost had me convinced that if I didn't get everything exactly right my poor snake would be miserable. :cens0r:

It really isn't that much effort and it doesn't have to cost all that much either - the price of the snake is generally irrelevant. Think of it the same way as salt water tanks - you keep an environment the animals just happen to live in it.

My point is that it's great that there are so many people willing to help a newb out with all this advice but it's gone way over the top. Temper it a little.

Newb says "My setup is not perfect."
Expert says "Snake healthy and eating? No problem. Minor tweak here and here. Done." Cost=pennies, not HUNDREDS $$$.

Sorry about the soapbox. Perhaps I need a break.

We do try and do that but a lot of the posts we get here are not the type you describe - we get the "My snake won't eat - but everything is perfect with my setup" far more often.

Then we find out that they spent hundreds of dollars on utter guff they and their snake neither need nor wan't and that pennies just will not fix their setup.

Believe it or not we tend to recomend one of the most basic, simple setups you can get for keeping the animals happy and healthy. The complications and problems are usually trying to retro-fit that concept into the hardware they already bought on the advice of some sales clerk in a chain store who either didn't know or didn't care what the animal actually needed.

Sorry this rambled on a lot longer than I meant it to.


dr del

[justind]

Hi, I'm really new to keeping snakes, I just got my BP about 2 months ago. I took a peace of aluminium and put it on the bottom of my tub and got some reflectix and foil tape and covered the bottom of my tub over my Zoo-med UTH. So far its worked well for me to help distribute the heat. I have no experience with flexwatt but maybe this solution could work for you. Maybe someone with more experience could tell you if this is a bad idea or not


P.S. You can get reflectix and aluminium foil tape from home depot.