Hi, I adopted a ball from a friend of mine. My friend was doing a horrible job at taking care of her. First she had no heat. Then it was a heat mat with no regulation. So finally my friend decided she would be in much better care with me. I currently have
0.1.0 Sonoran Gopher Snake
1.2.0 Western Banded Geckos
1.0.0 Long Nose Snake and
0.0.1 Great Basin Toad.
I also keep tarantulas and scorpions. All my herps are natives to my area so the husbandry is simple. (Note I am properly licensed in my state to hunt reptiles.) So I have experience in reptile keeping. Well I get the ball named Athena with a Exoterra 10gal, 4x5 zoomed heat pad, fake log, and a water bowl. Her bark was dirty and had multiple poops in it. I mean come on they don't poop every day not that hard to clean it. Well Athena is very shy and I understand why. She is under 2 foot, she is so fat though lol. She's as big around as my 5ft gopher. I had an extra 20L so I went shopping and using the info from this board, have set her up really nice. I bought a 20gal Zoomed Mat, Zoomed dimmer, another hide, fake plants, digi thermometers, the works. I even used black foam board around her tank. Multiple fake plants, vine, and branch. She has a lot of dark places to hide all over her tank. I have a water bowl more than big enough for her to soak. I have the heat mat on a dimmer. I also have a digi probed thermometer directly in the middle, on the glass, over the mat. Last night I had it at hot spot 94.5F, ambient 70F (I know to low.) So After I get home from work. The warm end is reading 104F!, and the dimmer is at medium. So I backed it to Low, and it's still reading 100F. I know the dimmer works I tried a lamp with it. I need another thermometer to check to see if it's my digi therm. It really does not feel that warm under the warm hide. I would need a IR temp gun to know for sure. I'm having such a prob dailing the dimmer in. So tomorrow is pay day I think I'm going to go get a thermostat, and be done with the dimmer. My other problem is my cool side is cold. I have the Zoomed 5gal pad from Athena's first cage. I was thinking of putting it on the cold side and plugging it into the dimmer with the 20gal pad. I was hoping since the larger pad is 8 watts as opposed to the 5gal 4 watts. When dimmed the 5gal would run a lower temp? I could easily bump up the temps with a lamp. Then the humidity would be gone. So yea I'm kinda frustrated on the temps. Maybe if I get some plexiglass for the top I can use a lamp and keep the humidity?