Heating problems

I would like to start by telling you I went from being scared of snakes to owning one in a matter of a day. It all started with my 3 yr old sons fish tank. We were getting fish and they kept Dying. So my hubby and I decided to look for something with a longer lifespan. He sugested that we look into a snake. I told him NOWAY! well to make a long story short he kept begging and I gave in. We got home and I did some reseach on the net about HIS new snake. (i also read the Loves manual) I then came to realize I was not scared of snakes just didn't understnad them so i went and held the new snake. now it is MY snake! The only problem I am having is that i cant seem to keep the temp consistant. The reptile store gave us a 100 wt. bulb It got way to Hot so we went down to 60, but still it is getting like 95 on the hot side and 80/85 on the cool. Right now i have raised the light on some glasses. and that seems to be kepping the temp down. But im wondering if you guys can give me the advantages and disadvantages for above lights VS. under tank heaters before i head back to my reptile store?

PS I have a Baby sunglow.

Well lights are o.k. and can be used with sucess. But like you have discovered most get very hot. They also dry the tank out big time and FAST. Corn snakes do not require much humidity but lights really dry things out.

The only advantage to them is they create light for viewing. Heating pads are by far better. While most think corns use direct sun to warm up in the wild this is not 100% true. They often use ground heat, like a hot road or rotting vegetation to heat themselves up which means heating pads work really well for them by providing "belly heat"

You could go out and purchase a heating pad, and 10-20 watt bulb if you want the lighting for viewing still while keeping your wamr side to a tolerable level.

bmm

Okay I think I am opting for the heating pad. But how do I monitor how hot (or not hot) it is getting? Right now i am not that worried about the lighting. i just want to get then temp under control so i can leave him alone for a while. He needs to eat soon and i would like to get the temp right before i attempt to feed him. Hopefully tonight!

You moniter the temp buy using a thermometer. They sell round cheap ones at the pet store, avoid these. They are inaccurate. You can purchase an accurate and fairly inexpensive indoor/outdoor thermometer at places like Home Depot, or other hardware stores. They have a probe to place "outside" you use this probe on the hot side under or on top of your heating element while the main part of the thermometer sits outside the cage giving you a reading of both your hot side (via the probe) and your room temp.

Good luck

bmm

A technique I have used to keep the temps down a bit when the rheostat just wouldn't go low enough is to wrap the heat pad in a towel.

I have a heat pad under half of my snakes hider rock. She's small enough that she can move from one side or the other in there to a warmer or cooler place. Since my house is so cool, I put a heat lamp with a low wattage bulb in it on the other end. It mostly points at a basking rock in there, and it keeps the other side away from the lamp at around 75 degrees. It's on a timer so that it goes on at 7 a.m. and off at 7 p.m. Since the snakes are somewhat nocturnal, she seems to come out around then to cruise around her cage, investigate the plants, hang out on her basking rock, and get some water, poop, etc. I also have a sort of graded layer of bedding. It's not as thick over the heating pad so that she can warm up in private especially for digesting, and it's a little thicker as it goes to the other side of her cave. She seems to prefer to lay sort of in the middle of it. I would make sure that your snake is not one to burrow, as they can get burned if they lay directly on top of the mat. You can put a cage carpet in if they do to give them a bit of insulation.

What I have done with my tank is to put it in a room by a window which receives natural light, and to have a ceramic heater on top of the tank on the warm side. I used to use a heating pad, but I found that the substrate was getting too warm, and so I opted for a ceramic heater instead. IMHO, a ceramic heater works much better than a lightbulb, because you can operate it at night without disturbing the snakes natural photoperiod. I have my ceramic heater hooked up to a herp power thermostat which you can buy at Big Apple Herp. I really splurged for the expensive model, which costs about $110 with S+H, but I feel that I REALLY GOT MY MONEY'S WORTH. When you set the thermostat, it NEVER fluctuates by more than ONE DEGREE from the temp it is set at, in my personal experience. I have had my one snake since July 2003 and I have NEVER had any regurges or any other problems with him.(Except when the weather changed from summer to fall, and he wouldn't come out of hiding until I figured out what was wrong) He is growing like a weed, he always eats readily, and never regurges. I have spent close to $400 on my cage setup in trying to figure out the exact formula for success, and I feel that I have achieved perfection with my cage setup the way it is now. I won't say that my way will absolutely work for everybody, or that my way is definitely the best way...all I can say is that it has worked like a dream for me so far.........

P.S. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND A DIGITAL THERMOMETER AT BOTH ENDS...because the ones with the dials just arent that accurate, in my experience.
I am also working on getting some pics of my little guy posted. It's just that it's really hard to use up 20 exposures...lol


"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him...."