Glass Tank Temps Making Me Nuts

[JohnNJ]

In case you haven't read any of my other posts, I had several pythons (ball, burmese, retic) 20+ years ago. Husbandry info at the time was non-existent so all were kept in glass tanks with a water bowl, driftwood, astro-turf (fake grass) and a light bulb on one side for heat. They all THRIVED and grew and lived long healthy lives in spite of everything I didn't do based on today's standard of care.

My big mistake was finding this forum because you're all making me nuts now that I know what I should be doing. Ignorance is bliss!

This is from the Glass Tank Setup sticky thread:

There are three temperature 'zones' you need to pay close attention to in your enclosure, they are:

A) Warm side belly temperature. This is the temperature of substrate (bedding) on the warm side of the enclosure.

B) Cool side belly temperature. This is the temperature of the substrate on the cool side of the enclosure.

C) Ambient air temperature in the enclosure.

The temperatures you require in these three zones are as follows:
Cool side = 82F.
Warm side = 92F.
Ambient air = 78-85F.

Where I am now after lots of fussing around:

I have a UTH (store bought, no thermostat) on the hot side and the infrared thermometer reads around 93F on the floor. The cold side has no UTH and it reads low 70's on the floor. Ambient air is room temp 67-71. I had the red heat lamp on the hot side but that made the floor temp 120F, according to the infrared therm but it was not hot to the touch. I moved the lamp over to the cool side which raised the floor and ambient temp on that side to mid 80's. I put the water bowl on the hot side on the edge of the UTH and the water temp is 72F. Humidity is fine. I have cardboard covering the hot side half of the top screen to hold in the humidity and some of the ambient heat from the lamp.

How you measure these temperatures is also important. You can measure the ambient air temperature using a 'stick on' thermometer. Use a digital thermometer and place it close to where the snake will spend most of it's time. To measure the belly temps on the warm and cool sides, you will need either a thermometer with a probe, or an infrared temperature gun. Dial or strip type thermometers are not accurate and should not be used.

I do not feel 100% comfortable with what I have to measure temps. I'm getting different temps from everything I use. I need recommendations for a probe type thermometer, a thermometer I can stick on the glass and a temp gun. I need to know that they are really accurate so that I'm sure I'm setting everything set up correctly.

BTW, the BP's are my son's, not mine. He would like to spend more time with them than I do so any help would be appreciated. Sorry for the long post.

JohnNJ

[starmom]

Tanks are hard to regulate sometimes!
-Get some rigid pink insulation and put it on the sides and back of the tank.
-Get a thermostat to control the UTH. Very important!!
-Check for the Acu-Rite digital thermometer/hygrometer at Lowe's and other places
-Reptile Basics has a great selection of temp guns.
-Sounds like you might need a UTH for the cool side, in which case you would need a thermostat like a Herpstat II to measure the two different outputs. Conversely, you could just buy two different thermostats!!
-Here's RBI's website: http://www.reptilebasics.com/. Great products. Great service. Owner Rich is a stand-up guy

[DrLew]

People!
Think about the temps in the wild - they ain't constant either!
I think a variable type environment suits the animal just fine - we're talking about snakes here.
We sometimes get too caught up in exactness - when nature isn't exact!
Think about it ......does the belly heat really need to be at 85.00000000 degrees? Uh...probably not - what happens when the sun goes behind a cloud....the ambient air temp goes down a tad - again a variable type environment.
Lighten up and enjoy your animals - the more difficult you make the faster you lose interest!

[starmom]

You offering to pay the vet bill DrLew?

[Argentra]

Starmom basically said it as far as getting the temps stable: Insulate the back and sides, make sure the screen top is foil or plastic treated, get a thermostat and a good digital thermometer, and a second UTH for the cool side seems needed (I need two UTHs on all my BP tanks and tubs here).

As for 'constant' temps, DrLew, consider this: Yes, nature varies widely. Yes, temps in the wild fluctuate a lot, especially at night. BUT Ball pythons live mostly underground. The temperatures even a few inches below the surface are a lot more stable and consistent then most people realize.

So, no we don't have to keep the temps in an enclosure at an exact number 24/7...but we DO have to keep the temperatures we pick fairly steady. BPs can handle a fair range of temperatures, but they don't handle fluctuations well.

To JohnNJ: Try the insulation and such and see if things don't improve. If they don't, get back to either Starmom or Myself and we'll try to pinpoint problem areas and help you get everything 'just right'.

[Jenn]

Hey John. Starmom has some great advice for you. Tanks can be tough to nail down compared to tubs, but in my opinion the extra effort is worth it. I have moved snakes to racks only to find that they did much better in tanks, and moved them back. The secret with tanks is to cover the top, insulate the sides, and get a good thermostat.

[dr del]

Hi,

Remember if you put a UTH on the cool side you can control it with connecting it to a dimmer switch then connecting that to your thermostat that is controling the warm side - you will want to monitor and adjust it fairly often at first till you get the dimmer set right though. This is probably best done with the snake not in the enclosure - another reason to have the tanks set up and stable for a couple fo days to a week before getting the animal wherever possible.

It can be trickier to set up than two thermostats and is obviously a compromise but it should be possible to do it.


dr del

[JohnNJ]

Hi,

Remember if you put a UTH on the cool side you can control it with connecting it to a dimmer switch then connecting that to your thermostat that is controling the warm side - you will want to monitor and adjust it fairly often at first till you get the dimmer set right though. This is probably best done with the snake not in the enclosure - another reason to have the tanks set up and stable for a couple fo days to a week before getting the animal wherever possible.

It can be trickier to set up than two thermostats and is obviously a compromise but it should be possible to do it.

dr del

Using another UTH with a rheostat is simple enough. If I get the floor temps right on the hot and cool sides and the humidity correct, does it matter what the ambient temp is? I would love to get away from using a red heat lamp. The ambient temp would, most likely, be around room temp of 67-72F. Is belly heat enough?

JohnNJ

[mainbutter]

People!
Think about the temps in the wild - they ain't constant either!
I think a variable type environment suits the animal just fine - we're talking about snakes here.
We sometimes get too caught up in exactness - when nature isn't exact!
Think about it ......does the belly heat really need to be at 85.00000000 degrees? Uh...probably not - what happens when the sun goes behind a cloud....the ambient air temp goes down a tad - again a variable type environment.
Lighten up and enjoy your animals - the more difficult you make the faster you lose interest!

Very true, but we need to be especially careful of animals that are prone to problems when in less than ideal housing.. There are plenty of species that are "more difficult" because the current information out there points to flaws in husbandry being linked to health issues including infections and going off feed, on top of general stress which we like to reduce as much as we can for our animals. I'm definitely not very experienced in species that are "more difficult" to keep happy and healthy, but it's been said on these forums that less than ideal conditions for blood pythons and BCCs cause more problems than snakes like BPs and BCIs(for example)

[Darkice]

I used to use ceramic heat lamps to keep the ambient air temps up but i had to pull them because it was too dry. Now i just have a UTH on the bottom and a larger UTH on the side of the tank about half way up. Its working much better and the humidity is where it needs to be.
I have screne lids but i used aluminum tape to seal off 85%.

A friend of mine uses all wooden enclosures and his are perfect. Eventually ill switch to those.