new bp owner with some heating questions

[diehlmalikie21]

the little woman and i have just gotten our 1st bp. he ate on the day he was supposed to without any issue. he looks good and his temperment seems to be good as well. Our question is about the heating. We have a 40g tank,and a uth on a thermostat. we reside in a colder state so i also got a dimmable light fixture with one of those ceramic heaters to try and compensate for the cold. so obviously the pad is around 90 but the temp on the hot side of the tank is around 77 in the air. the ceramic heater only comes on with the thermostat. should i have this on nonstop, or on its own thermostat so he can bask under it? if the light fixture is on we get up to 85 on the hot side. also the humidity is around 72%. As long as i keep up with the cleaning is this ok?

p.s. i have been scanning a million of posts on here and have gotten a lot of awesome info. also what does pk mean when refering to feeding?

[Mft62485]

pk means pre-killed

[cmack91]

you might be able to take it off of the tstat, see how hot it gets on its own, and if its to hot, i would get another tstat, but i would seperate it and it keep it on 24/7 for him.

also, congrats on your first BP and welcome to the site!

[Mike Cavanaugh]

You probably don't need the ceramic heat emitter at all.

[jmitch]

what temp do you keep your house at. What I did during this last week when it got to cold. I moved my bp to spare bedroom, and purchased a small heater from lowes it was 20 bucks. I heated just that one room to about 76.

[mpkeelee]

In winter u will definitely need some way of keeping the tank above 75. Try a rheostat or light dimmer for the ceramic heater. Some people even used a separate thermostat. If u have a room u can keep between75-80 that's even better

[tcutting]

as stated aimbiant temps in the tank should be above 75. I have a 55g tank with a huge UTH and i offset the heat lamp slightly from where the UTH is and I get about 80 for air temps inside the enclosure. a UTH is really only good for belly heat in a standard glass tank not much beyond that.

[diehlmalikie21]

you might be able to take it off of the tstat, see how hot it gets on its own, and if its to hot, i would get another tstat, but i would seperate it and it keep it on 24/7 for him.

also, congrats on your first BP and welcome to the site!

where do you put a tstat for a ceramic heater? anywhere under it or glued to the thing he basks on?

[mpkeelee]

U can just hang it in somehow, as long as ur snake can't get out, so its in the middle of the tank about 3 inches above the substrate. Set it for 77 and see how that works. U may have to play around with it to get it just right. And make sure u have a thermometer inside so u know what the temps is