Your UTH needs a thermostat, they can and will get hot enough to kill your snake.

Here are some good thermostats stay away from the junk sold in pet stores!

Budget: http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-MTPR.../dp/B000NZZG3S

Mid-Range: http://www.reptilebasics.com/ranco-etc-111000-pre-wired

Best: http://spyderrobotics.com/home/products.html

You also need a good probed thermometer. UTH's do not increase the temperature of the air in a cage so Without a probed thermometer you can't tell how hot it actually is.

You can get this at Walmart, it costs $12 and measures 2 temperatures as well as humidity. (The probe goes on the floor of the hot side directly over the UTH and the unit sits on the cool side)



If the room that the cage is on stays above 75 degrees the UTH is all you need, but if it drops below 75 degrees you will need a heat lamp to increase the temperature of the air in the cage to 80 degrees. I suggest infrared heat lamps as they can be left on 24/7.

Checkout this thread on cage heating: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...t-Thermometers