UTH and Thermometer placement

Hey everybody. I have a qustion about my UTH. The heater is placed on the glass on the underside of the viv and I have the probe for an indoor/outdoor thermometer taped to the glass in the cage. Is this the wrong place for the probe to be? Should it be on top of the substate measuring that temp instead of the glass directly over the heater. Reason being, if I set my heater using a rheostat(sp?) to 88 degrees the top of the substrate is still cooler obviously than the glass, and the rest of the viv really has a drop in temp almost immediately out of the heater area down to about 72 to 65 at the opposite end of the viv. I have a heat light on a timer right now to supplement the heat and it's no big deal it can stay there forever for all I care, but I know that snakes don't like bright lights and I was under the assumption that the UTH would be all the supplemental heat I should need. Especially for a 15 gallon. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for looking.


Scott

On the glass directly above the UTH is the correct place because you need to know the hottest possible temp your snake could get to, to avoid burning the snake.

Nanci

You got it right. The glass above the uth will bee the warmest spot that the snake can burrow too. so your good. And.. you don't really need the heat lamp at all, a standard light is all you need to see with.

Thanks for the quick replies. So the temp in the rest of the tank should not be a big deal to worry about then?


Scott

Your shooting for a warm side of 80- 85 degrees (unless your snake has an IR issue) and a cool side of 70 -75 degrees. But it also can vary a little on both sides. I would try not to go higher than 88. But things do vary. Viv size, amount of substrate, snake knocking water around, house temps changes with outside temps, so things vary. just shoot for the above temps.