Quote Originally Posted by JRLongton View Post
As I read earlier in this thread, you are trying to create a hot spot, not heat the whole tank with a UTH, so I'm not sure what to make of these comments.

As has been mentioned before, a UTH is never going to heat the whole tank. UTHs are used to create hot spots only and cannot provide the ambient temps needed. but it seems you understand that since you set up a space heater, which just makes your above statements more confusing.

However, 73 ambient is not enough. Most breeders I know warm the reptile room up to 77 or so. That way the cool side is always at least 77, and a hot spot can be provided with a UTH.

You sound stressed but be assured this community wants to be helpful. I'm afraid that you haven't made the situation clear, pics and exact temperatures would be great. You say it stays "cold in the tank". In the tank or on the hotspot? How cold? 85? 80? 78? 73? That information is important to understand what is going on.

Finally, and even without that information, I'll tell you exactly what the solution is. If we are talking about a TANK and not a tub. This is what you should do:

Get a hold of a ceramic heat emitter (CHE). Junk the UTH all together. Plug the CHE into the thermostat and place the probe appropriately inside the tank. Finally unplug the space heater and put it away.

Sorry but its a little overboard to permanently heat a whole room for just one snake. If you had, I don't know, 10 snakes then yeah, heat the room and use UTHs, but for just one? Nah, waste of electricity. It makes much more sense to just heat the tank directly with a CHE. If you have a tub that is a totally different story.

You want to get a few Accurite thermometers also, as it sounds like you don't have any. Without a thermometer, you really don't know what the ambient temp is. They're cheap on Amazon, I get 'em for $10 or so, and they give humidity as well.

Don't get discouraged. Snake keeping is a great and rewarding hobby, but can be really stressful at first. Hell, my bald spot expanded a whole inch within months of getting my first corn snake!
sorry for the confusion, when I say tank I mean only a specific part of the tank, the hot spot. And when I said the tank isn't heating up, I meant the hot spot isn't maintaining a high enough temperature. The temp on the hot spot constantly changes which I wouldn't mind if it stayed in a good temperature range but it has gotten really hot and it's also lowered to 85. It doesn't stay at 73 in the room, it just dropped that low but the heater turns on then. Right now it's set at 75.