Hi everyone!
I'm still relatively new to the world of snakes, I've had reptiles before but never a snake. Now that I have moved out of my parents house I have two. A normal, and a Fire ball. I have a couple of questions that I couldn't find the answer to in stickies or searching. (If my questions are answered in stickies and searches, I apologize...I'm blind haha.)
But anyway,
I have one tank set up in my closet (I took the doors off, and the tank is sitting on my dresser) and the other is DIRECTLY under my A/C vent. Probably isn't the smartest place to keep him but there wasn't much space for him anywhere else lol. My room mate and I like to keep the apartment at about 70 degrees F so it's pretty chilly in here sometimes. (both are glass 40 gallon tanks)
The problem i'm having is keeping my temperatures up. On both set-ups I have two 100w daytime heat lamps (I understand snakes don't need lights on the tank) those fixtures are over the cooler side of the tanks. On the warmer side of the tanks I have the Ultratherm heating mat. I believe the sizes of both heating mats are 17x11 at 30 Watts.
the bulbs seem to be putting out more heat than the heat mats. I have (on each) a digital temp gauge with a probe, and the zoomed temp gauge/humidity gauge.
as of right now its almost 9:00pm so theyre heat lamps are turned off and the digital temp gauge is reading about 77 degrees F on both and the zoomed gauges are about 72-73ish
the care sheet I read in the sticky said my tank shouldn't get below 75 degrees (If I remember correctly)
Mainly the problem i'm having is during the day. I can't get the temperatures up to the ambient temps, nor the basking temps. I'll try to turn off the A/C but my room mate always turns it back on so it's pointless to try and keep our apartment warm.
I'm not sure if my heat mats are big enough to bring the temps up to where my snakes would like them to be. The associate at my local pet store said the size of the heat mats should be fine, but if not he would exchange my smaller ones for bigger ones.
basically you all read that to read this lol
should I go the heat mat route?
or should I get 150w day heat bulbs, and two 75w night heat bulbs and use one of each for my snakes?
As i've said before, I'm pretty new at this still. Should I have two pythons? Honestly? No but when I saw my newest python I instantly grew emotionally attatched. My love for the two grow every day and I just want to take care of them both properly.
I appreciate everyone for taking the time out of their day to read about my problem and thank everyone for they're replies.
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