What to do at night?

[dr del]

And I thought it wasn't going to be this complicated... Well, I do want a glass show tank as opposed to a tub. I live in an air conditioned house in Kentucky, USA. I will keep doing research and post my proposed system and see what everyone thinks, see if it will actually work. In the mean time, I need to keep learning.

So, in this setting, what is the best course of action for heating? You mention in the post above that I may need UTH on both ends. If this is the case, how does one keep 1/3 hot (90 degrees), and the rest cooler (80's)? Sorry if I seem totally lost but this is turning out to be a little more complicated than I thought.

Yes it can seem a little daunting at first.

The idea is to have one end at 90-94f and the other end at 80-85f. I hate to say it but a tank is a little harder to sort out than a tub initially.

To answer the how there are a few possibilities - two thermostats (one for hot one for cool) this is the prefered method as your heat sources are going to be different sizes in all likely hood. The less expensive (and less precise) way would be to put the heat matt for the cool end on a dimmer and spend a couple of days fiddling with it till you think it's calibrated right.

I recomend not trying the dimmer technique at all if you are mixing ceramic top heat and heat matts - the voltage and current differences make it too risky to me.

It's also only fair to warn you you will hardly ever see your snake in the tank in all probablility. Nocturnal ,shy snakes are not exactly a natural display animal.

Here's the link to our glass tank set up sticky to give you an idea of the more common methods of doing it.

Everything in this situation is somewhat of a trade off when it gets right down to it.

Belly heat for example is thought by many to be the best for ball pythons - but in a display tank setup then the substrate can insulate too much if care is not take to the extent that to reach the desired temperature inside the animals hide the matt gets so hot it can crack the glass of the tank or burn the snake should it burrow down to it.

Top heat is good for keeping the ambient temps up but tends to have a horrible effect on the humidity.

This is why you did exactly the right thing by trying to find all the information before starting.

Many people end up buying very expensive geegaws that don't actually work at all and , basically, have to throw it all out and start again.

And if they had already got the snake at this point everything is suddenly terribly urgent and mistakes get made to the animals detriment.

Best plan is keep asking the questions, don't buy anything till you are sure it will work and is what you really want and then have everything running for a week or so to check everything before you actually get the animal.

Add to this buying a good quality, well started animal from a trusted breeder and you should be on your way to many years of stress free herping.



dr del