Quote Originally Posted by Alicia View Post
First, good call on setting up a smaller cage for her while she settles in! That's needed, and that may be enough to do the trick all by itself.

Second, try nudging up your temps. I like giving my hatchlings an 87-88 degree hotspot. Usually, I find 87 to be best. Also try to bump your ambient temperature by about the same 2-3 degrees to something more like 77-78.

Apologies if I missed it, but how are you measuring your temps? Probes, IR temp gun, both?

In a 10gal, especially insulated, it's pretty easy to maintain temperatures without a CHE. I don't know what wattage you're running, but a CHE can be very drying in a small cage - whereas you're not going to have the same issues with a UTH on its own. A fix for humidity could be a humid hide.

That's all I've got off the top of my head. Hopefully, someone else will chime in with more

I go based off the thermostat probe and a temp gun. In my large tank the probe is directly above the UTH which has the 5 inches of substrate. SO i take the reading from the temp gun in the hot hide, cool hide, and center substrate and adjust the thermostat until i get the temps i want. The higher temps will be very easy in the smaller tank. I'm not worried about maintaining humidity. I keep an eye on it but my home humidity already sits at 55-60% so it is VERY easy to maintain in an enclosure. I have multiple sizes and wattages of CHEs as I use them for many different animals, Tortoise, chicks, ducklings, snakes etc. Im using a small 100 watt on the 10gal tank. She was just put in and checked it out for 5 mins before settling in the warm hide. Unfortunately i dont have too many plants in there yet. Its cluttered as i have 2 hides, a water dish, and an aquarium decor that she can slither through. But only like 4 small plants for now. I will definitely be adding more. I'll update in a week to see if she eats. Or earlier if she starts day traveling. Im not used to smaller tanks for snakes, I don't want it to get too hot and her not have a place to escape to.