After going back and checking all the posts I could find on this topic, including my own, I still am not comfortable with where my probes are. I like to be as precise as possible because I would feel awful if I got my ball home when I thought my tank was ok and have it get burned through the substrate or have the wrong temp and humidity. I feel like I've asked this same question 50 times now but last couple times I made references to it was in another post so I figured I would make a new thread so it would catch peoples attentions.

My heating pad is set on low and is about 1/8th of an inch below the tank bottom. I have about 6layers of newspaper as substrate, and tiles underneath my UTH to keep the wood of my closet safe.



I have my probe stuck just under the lid of my hot hide and one under my cold hide for hot and cold temps, and my hygrometer in the middle.





One other thing I noticed today was that since I have my tank raised off the pad, its not underneath a little over an inch at the end of the hotside.



On the above pic I outlined the area that feels cooler. Is that small area of cool gonna effect anything? T_T

Are my probes in acceptable places IE just under the hides?

If the UTH is making the newspaper substrate too hot, can I use normal carpet as a substrate? I have extra from a house project and can cut it to size if thats possible.

Sorry again for the super huge pics and sorry if I'm asking or posting too much o_O

-AK

EDIT: The current temps are: Hot Side: 90.7* Cold Side: 80* Humidity: 60%