Floor temps too high

[VooDooDoc]

I recently added some infrared lamps to the top of my enclosure and they work great to get the temps up. However the spot directly under the higher wattage one is pretty hot on the floor. I'm talking like 107. At what point is it too hot for the BP?

[mattchibi]

First, it seems you are new here so welcome !

Second, take a look at this care sheet, it will answer a lot of your quesitons: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...s%29-Caresheet

Third, you NEED to go to home depot and buy a lamp dimmer so that you can turn your lamp higher and lower, and not necessarily just on/off. 107 F is way too hot for your BP! The hottest point in an enclosure should be 95 F, but I prefer to keep mine around 92-93 F. Would you mind posting pictures or further explaining your setup? In terms of heating, hides, water dishes, size of enclosure and the size of your BP.

[VooDooDoc]

Also I have an UTH near this hot spot. Do I really need UTH? If the overhead heat lamps are providing adequate warmth is that enough? Do BPs need "belly heat"? Or is ambient heat good enough.

[AK907]

I would consider the belly heat more far important. You will also need a thermostat for that as well. If anything, ditch the bulb. It will dry out your cage and unless your house is really cold, probably not needed at all. As mattchibi said, read that care sheet.

[VooDooDoc]

My lamps both have dimmers built in. I had them adjusted to make the temp in the enclosure 83 on the cool side and 87 on the hot side. The 107 temp is the surface temp, not the ambient air temp. The surface directly beneath the light is always going to be hotter than the rest of the enclosure to some extent.

If I drop the temp to 85 on the hot side it seems the spot on the floor directly beneath the light is 95. So I guess that's pretty good then. If I can't hold this temp stable I guess I'll have to get some sort of thermostat. Hopefully I can buy something and not have to build one.

Now my issue is the hide on the hot side. There is an UTH right underneath. With the light shinning on top is making it too hot. Around 100 if I stick a thermometer probe in there. So I guess I'll just get rid of UTH and stick with the lights.

[VooDooDoc]

So belly heat is important then. The problem is the UTH does not do nearly enough to warm the enclosure. Just by its self it barely cracks 70. I even added a second one to the side (not currently in use) and that gets me to around 75.

I'm not concerned about humidity and the bulbs drying things out, humidity is not a problem in my house.

[AK907]

You will want a hot side and a cool side, but do not necessarily need two UTH unless your house is really cold. 90-92 hot side and around 80ish cool side. These temps are measured on the glass, under your substrate. You want an ambient temp somewhere between these two temps.

You should be concerned with humidity if you are using an infrared bulb! You may not think its zapping all your humidity in your tank, but it most certainly is, I don't care how humid your house is. You NEED humidity in the 60-70% range in your tank and 70-80% when your ball is shedding. With an infrared bulb, especially at those temps, which WILL kill your snake very quickly, I can promise you your humidity is too low unless you are misting it 10 times a day. How are you monitoring it?

[VooDooDoc]

Humidity ranges between 50 and 60% as measured with a hygrometer. With both lights on. I figure I can mist it when he's shedding to bring it up another 10%. Maybe over time it will change more, I've only had the lights on for about 24hours.

[mattchibi]

Like I said before:

Telling us the exact specifications for your tank will help us to help you. Better yet post a picture. From what youve written, it sounds like you have two lamps and one unregulated UTH. Also, nothing in your enclosure should be reaching 107 F. The Basking Spot temperature should be 95 at the highest, that means that the "surface temps" as you call it (which im guessing is on top of a hide) should be at 95 at the highest. If the snake wants to, it will go up there and bask.

How are you taking the temperatures of inside the hide? You should take all the bedding out, and have the thermoMETER probe hot glued to the bottom of the glass, above the center of the Under Tank Heater. This way it will get the hottest temperature on top of the UTH that the snake could reach. Of course the substrate on top may be a bit cooler, but if the snake wants, it will burrow down to get warmer.

Also, by the sounds of it, you are using an unregulated UTH. In my honest opinion, I would never use a UTH without some sort of dimmer or rheostat at least. Try to get a VE-100 or a Ranco if you are short of cash, or a Herpstat or VE-200 or 300 if you have a bit more to spend. Its a worthy investment. The pictures Ive seen of burnt ball python bellies are disgusting and I would never want to hurt my snakes like that. The unregulated heat elements can "spike" and the temperatures really fluctuate a lot.

Lastly, what bedding are you using?

[VooDooDoc]

Here is a picture of his enclosure (I've been trying to get it on here for a while not ignoring the request). The left side is the cool side. Right now temp is 80-83. Right side is warm side right now temp is 85-88. The surface temp of the grapevine is 94-96. These are temps over the last 2 hours.

The temp inside the hide on the right (which is right on top of the UTH) last time I checked was around 104 (he's not in there by the way), that was about 2 hours ago.

As you can see I have 4 thermometers, both sides and at 2 different heights.

The UTH that is attached to the side is not on. The guy at the pet-store told me to put that on there rather than underneath, it did nothing. The instructions said once applied you can't remove it without damaging it so I went out and bought another for underneath. It does not heat the rest of the enclosure so I ended up with the lamps.