Advice on tank heating and modifications to my tank setup?

[hallir]

I will be a first-time BP owner in a week or so and have set up the tank ahead of time to have time to get all the husbandry in order. Down the road when the snake is larger I plan to get a PVC enclosure for the long-term, but to save money and use the materials I currently had access to I made my own modified glass tank enclosure for the short-term. I have modified a glass 20-gal long aquarium by flipping it on its side and installing a plexiglass door, using https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...arium-Solution plans as guidance. I took this approach to keep humidity levels higher in the tank and to have a front-opening enclosure, and the construction turned out great but I am struggling with maintaining the correct temps in the tank.

I have a bioactive tank set-up with Terra Firma substrate. 2 hides, one on each side of the tank of the temp gradient. I have an UTH under the right side of the tank set to 90 degrees, and an 8" 9 watt LED over the tank as well, not for heating so much as for the live plants in the enclosure although it does put out a small amount of heat. However, I'm struggling to get the temp high enough in the tank. Temp inside the warm hide is sitting at about 88 but the ambient temp in the tank is only 72 and I know it needs to be around 80. I tried adding a 50 W halogen mini dome light on the top of the tank to get the temp up. You can see it in the photo on the right side of the tank, the ambient temp did get up to 80 with the bulb added but then surface temps were sitting above 100 so I turned it off and don't feel like this will be a safe option.

I know that my limitations with this tank set up are the tank being glass and not super insulated. The problem I'm running into is not knowing how I can supplement the UTH with another heat source without overheating the glass top of the cage or surfaces within the cage. Would insulating the glass help? Any other suggestions for heating? Anything else about my setup that I should modify? I feel like I am pretty clear on husbandry guidelines but getting it to happen in real life has been a little tricky. My aquarium-on-its-side set-up is doing wonders for humidity levels, but if anything I am now having the opposite problems.

[gunkle]

Some people insulate the back and sides with things like foam board or actual insulation panels. It's not a good idea to put a heat bulb or a ceramic heat emitter directly on top of glass as you will cause the glass to break. A UTH is only meant to create a belly hot spot and isn't meant for raising ambient temperature. Not sure how to heat up the ambient temps with the tank on it's side. Hopefully someone else can help there.