My first ball python

[Regius_049]

Okay I have completely disconnected the UTH. I've only used it for one night. Im going to have to do some shopping tomorrow for the products I need as everything is closed down for the night. Can I use a space heater in the room to keep the ambient temperature above 75 degrees until I can get situated with more suitable equipment? The space heater is regulated. If i set it to 77 degrees, it wont let the temperature drop below 75 in the room. Also would a ceramic heater for my lamp fixture be more ideal? It is equipped to hold ceramic emitters.

Using a space heater to warm the room to 77-79 would be perfectly fine as a temporary or long term solution. Many owners who have a lot of animals use this method as it is more cost efficient after a point.

A ceramic heat emitter essentially functions the same as a heat bulb, just emits no light and only heat. They still however heat the air and thus reduce humidity. Heat bulbs and ceramic heat emitters can be used for ball pythons, but extra care to maintain humidity will likely be necessary depending on your individual conditions and where you live.

Your optimal plan in the mean time would be probably to just use your space heater to heat the room to 77-79. A ball python will do fine in this temporarily. The "hot spot" is primarily used for thermoregulation associated with digestion, thus I would not feed your snake unless it has access to a hot spot, but your snake will certainly survive some time in the aforementioned temperatures.

Combination the information from the above posters, UTHs work well for the designed application. However, I would try and make sure the UTH isn't "sandwiched" between two flat surfaces. You want heat to be able to dissapate from the UTH outside the tub, so you don't build up heat in undesirable locations. I would consider what you want your "final" or "optimal" setup to be. Think about what you think is easiest for you and then begin to set that up, in my opinion, your best options for long term husbandry are:

(1) Use a combination of UTH and space heater - UTH provides hot spot of ~90 degrees and space heater keeps room at say 77 degrees. This is in my opinion, the easiest and most straightforward method.
(2) Use UTH in conjunction with a ceramic heat emitter or heat bulb. As above, use UTH for 90 degree hot spot and tailor your bulb wattage so an ambient of 77-80 degrees inside the cage is reached, then provide an appropriately sized water dish that gives you humidity between approximately 55-75% (higher is better).
(3) UTH in combination with a radiant heat panel or a radiant heat panel by itself. RHPs emit radiant heat making maintaining humidity easier, but getting the right combination of hot spot and ambient temperatures can be challenging.

A few notes on UTHs, as shown above, you might be fine running a UTH at 108 degrees. What is of concern is the hottest temperature reading inside the cage over the heater. Glass (compared to plastic) is a relatively poor thermocondunctor, so you will likely have to run your UTH hotter to get that 90 degree hot spot, but what that magic temperature is I could not say as I do not use glass enclosures for my snakes. I should point out to you that some UTHs are better than others, I don't like the zoomed ones because I have read many anecdotal reports of issues and they cannot be removed once attached to a tank. I would recommend giving these a look as they run cooler, can be removed, and are UL safety certified.