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My tank is driving me *expletive* crazy!
A few weeks ago I purchased my first bp. I was thrilled, she's beautiful, she eats like a champ, she's very docile, blah, blah, blah...
Unfortunately, I went with a glass tank for her housing. This was at the advice of the pet store folks, who I should not have listened to. BAD, BAD, me. I bought larger, thinking I would add foliage, etc. in the middle (in addition to her hides) so that she'd feel secure until she got bigger, and she seems to be doing just fine curled up in one end or the other.
But the temps! ARG! Her cool end is doing fine-ish (fluctuation of 3-5 degrees throughout the day) but I am having a ****ens of a time keeping my hot end where it needs to be. It is my own fault for buying a beautiful and seemingly non functional aquarium *smacks self on forehead*. Her aquarium is placed in the lowest possible traffic area of my home, and the part that has the least amount of temperature fluctuation.
I started with just a UTH alone, but it wasn't providing enough heat at all. While the probe I had on top of it was reading decently, it was only warm directly on top of the UTH (rather than warm end/cool end), and she seemed uninterested in spending any time in a hide positioned over the UTH. I moved her hot side hide from over the top of the UTH, to just being on the "hot side", except once I moved it the hide's temp went back down to an ambient 85ish (basically, UTH was only making itself warm).
Soooo, I got a heat lamp. Snakey girl loves the hot side now, and will actually split her time between warm and cool hides. Problem being, the heat lamp produces way too much heat, especially with the top covered with foil in my attempts to keep in humidity. I've been turning the thing on and off, on and off, throughout the day, but it's frustrating as hell. And the lamp creates too much heat with the foil on, period, but with just the UTH enough heat isn't generated on her warm side to keep the temps where she needs them.
I'm sorry, this is a dreadfully long post. I'm trying to include information that anyone might deem as useful to give advice. Basically I'm just wondering if I should get a second UTH and try that out (on the side, in addition to the bottom), or if a regulatory thermostat is the best idea here, or if I should just scrap the whole stupid setup and put her in a tub? I like the glass tank for aesthetic reasons, but the snake's health is way more important.
I'm sure I'm also asking a question that's been asked 100 times. I did see the lovely sticky on a glass tank setup, with foil, and light, and UTH. Unfortunately my similar setup is not yielding great results and I'm wracked with guilt about it...
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