Hey everyone! I was just wondering where everyone puts their UTH thermostat probe? This isn't to get a "what's better than what" or anything like that, this is just for people's personal experiences!

I myself have my UTH probe set up I guess a bit odd from everyone else. I like accuracy more than anything, so when I first got my UTH and the thermostat probe, and up until a few months ago, I had used 100% silicone to attach the probe on the bottom of the inside of the enclosure, the UTH being on the outside. I set the thermostat to 90° and thought that I was good. However, I noticed that the top of his substrate was cooler. I didn't have a temp gun at the time, but I figured "Hey, this isn't right" so I reached out to a Facebook Ball Python group and was informed by the group admin that the probe should be set on top of the substrate to get an accurate reading. I was a bit confused and I asked "What if my ball moved the probe or if his cooler body temperature happened to effect the pobe's reading?" and I didn't get a straight answer, just a bunch of "Why would that happen?" ect ect. So, to experiment just for the day, I moved the probe to the top of the substrate. Within an hour, both the thermostat and my temp gun were reading 90°F and the probe hadn't moved. So, I thought I was good and I turned in for the night.

Well, I woke up in the middle of the night that night perchance and turned on my lamp and looked over to my ball pythons enclosure to see that the thermostat was reading 83°. I was very confused and got up to check with the temp gun. It was reading over 100°! My ball had been on a late night exploration and moved the probe and he was still in his warm hide! I immediately went and grabbed him, luckily he had no burns. I readjusted the probe and placed my ball python in a holding bin I placed him in when I cleaned out his enclosure and I immediately went to planning as to how I could get accurate readings without him moving the probe.

Then, I came up with a diy idea and immediately went to work. I took his warm hide, some parchment paper, and some hot glue and silicone, and went to work. I essentially made an anchor the size of his warm hide that would be lightly covered by substrate and have the probe reinforced attached with Silicone and hot glue, and that thing wasn't moving. I waited till the entire thing was dry so that the fumes were gone and I placed it into his enclosure.

So far, so good! I'm now getting accurate readings with both the thermostat and the temp gun and the probe hasn't moved! Hopefully this anchor holds up, but it's an easy fix if it doesn't! Easy to clean too.

Let me hear your stories!