I got the jumpstart for now and it's working like a dream. Got it set to 86 right now and his temps have been nice and consistent, shuts off around 88 and back on as needed. I will eventually upgrade to the herpstat but for now this is working beautifully. Yesterday was a good day for him... got his temps nice and stable once more and he got his weaned rats in so he's once again on appropriate sized prey (seriously when will he stop outgrowing them so quickly ) and will hopefully stop nipping me now. X3 I missed the ship date for last week and had to wait and apparently he was very cross with me/hoped my hand would be tasty...

And for the other questions I do have his probes (both the thermometers and the thermostat now) on the ground, though I'm trying to keep the thermostat purposefully off the UTH so it's reading the ambient temps for better accuracy. With this setup now I am happy to have the 80w, I imagine that's gonna be keeping the overall temp of the RHP lower since it won't have to work as hard, not that he's gotten too investigative of it for me to truly worry it would hurt him. I know when I ran it on it's own it got pretty toasty. It takes up about half the damn enclosure and I was a little worried the gradient would be off but since putting it on the thermostat last night it's been perfect.

Now I just need to drill some nicer holes for the probes and I will be a very satisfied snake mom.