Quote Originally Posted by Kaorte View Post
A thermostat has its own probe that you put on the heat source. You can buy one that regulates two different temperature but it is over $200 (the herpstat II). Another alternative would to get a reptitemp 500r thermostat for $25 and a light dimmer for $11.

Plug the hot side UTH directly into the thermostat. Plug the cool side UTH into the dimmer and plug the dimmer into the thermostat. Place the thermostat probe directly on the hot side UTH. Make sure you have a probed thermometer to measure the temp of each heat pad. Dial the thermostat in until the hot side reaches 90-92*. Adjust the rheostat until the cool side measures between 80-85*.

I think 20 minutes a day is fine. I know its hard to resist, especially when you only have one snake. They should be pretty relaxed when you are handling them. Relatively slow movements and just checking things out. A younger snake will move around a lot more.
This is what I do, based on kaorte's recommendation as well. I have 2 UTH's, one for warm side, one for cool side. Just make you plug a dimmer into the cool side one, adjust it for the temp you want, then plug it into the thermostat.

Here is what I did:

1) Setup warm UTH. Place the thermostat probe outside the enclosure, taped to the UTH. Remember, you have a thermometer probe under the substrate to measure the highest possible temp your snake would be exposed to.
2) Adjust thermostat to maintain warmside UTH at ~92F. Once this has been established, I let it run a full 24 hours to ensure it does not spike with cooling of the house in the evenings.
3) Once you setup coolside UTH with the dimmer to maintain the cool side temp, plug it into the thermostat as well. Just a note, when the warm UTH is being shut off to maintain the temp, it will also shut off the cool side UTH (with the reptitemp 500r anyway, which is what I use.) So I ended up setting my cool side UTH/dimmer for ~84, so now when it is shut off/on with the thermostat, it maintains ~80. So if the thermostat does fail, your snake won't cook because the dimmer will keep your cool side UTH at a comfortable temp, and the snake will obviously be uncomfortable on the hot side UTH.

It seems confusing at first, I know I was so confused by thermostat/thermometer setup and placement. But don't worry- once you have the equipment, it becomes very clear.