Day/Night Cycle- Please help!

i recently read somewhere that you should turn the heatlamp off at night. is this true? and if so, do you need another heat source during that time?

If it gives off white light, then yes. A red bulb can stay on 24/7.

The temps in the tank should not drop below 70-75 at night though, so whether you have a heat lamp or UTH, you still need to be careful about that.

I leave my red light on 24/7 i also have a uth both to one side of the tank, I'd trun of the lamp but the ambiant temp drops below 70 with out it, I'v got a very cold house

While ambient temps are important, remember that your snakes dont hover and live suspended.

I'd say that substrate/floor temps are just as much, if not more important. You'd be surprised how much heat a UTH gives off.

I just checked my BP tank last night, I've got about 2 inches of eco-earth and then a light layer of reptibark, and an inch into the eco-earth is a good 105 degrees.

I just wanted to add that 105 is way too high for a corn snake. 85 is good. 90 even (bit high).

Okay. Carry on. lol

I just use an UTH with a heat lamp during the day only. I also only use the heat lamp during the winter when my daytime house temps only reach 60 or so. I still turn it off at night, as I figure in the wild, they experience lower temps at nightfall anyway. They seem to hang out on the cool side anyway, and only go on the warm side if it's really cold, or they're digesting.

Aw, Spirit, you mean you dont have a substrate temp of 120 degrees for your corns?

Animal cruelty I say!!!! Those poor corns of yours are freezing!!!

In all seriousness, I was just pointing out that the temp an inch below the surface is 105, but the surface temp can only be 85-90. Obviously with a corn you'd need to control the heat coming from a UTH, because it'd be way too much, unless you had some tiny little UTH---like they sell for hermet crabs and just had a very small area of the viv.

Then again, they do say that UTH's raise ambient temps 5-10 degrees, so who knows. I gotta get me one of those laser temp guages.

LOL!! Sorry, Joe. I was just pointing it out to any non members or lurkers who have absolutely no idea what temps are correct. You never know who might read that and assume 105 is perfect, then be like "why'd my snake die". It's not obvious to those who don't know... Yanno?

But the reason I keep the 40 watt red bulb on over the cool side of the tank is because with it off, the temps there can drop well into the high 50's or low 60's (the temps over the UTH drop to about 78 without the light). It doesn't produce much heat at all, but it does allow for the cool side (at night) to stay around 70. During the day though of course... in conjunction with the 60 watt heat lamp over the UTH, the UTH stays at a nice 85, where the cool side is around 76-ish.

thanx so much, everybody! all the temp.'s in my terrarium are okay, but i was a little confused about the light thing. how could i b so stupid?

thanx again,