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another heat question from a newbie

M

moonshadow

Keeper of the Menagerie
Hey all! thanks for the great info on this site! it has helped me a lot as I've prepared to get my first snake! I'm only one or two steps away from bringing him home. I've even got my vet picked out already! So far I have a 20 gallon long tank with about an inch and a half of shredded aspen, and an exoterra UTH hooked up to a thermostat. I also have a separate indoor/outdoor thermometer to give me temp readings on both ends of the tank. I will add the hides etc. after i've finished messing with the temp.

Anyhow, my question is this...

If the thermostat probe is under the substrate and over the heat pad what should I set the temp to? I know the range in the tank shoud be 85-75 but my apartment is generally about 66 and I can't seem to get the cool end to get higher than 70 during the day. As far as the warm end goes, if I set the thermostat to 85 then it is 85 on the bottom of the tank, but the substrate only gets to about 74. If I set the thermostat to 88 the substrate only gets to about 77. Since I don't have the snake yet I don't know if he/she will burrow and I don't want to risk burning my snake. What should I do?
 
I don't believe you should worry too much about ambient air temps if you are using belly heat exclusively. You will probably burn your snake if you try to get to the mid 80's air temp soley using belly heat.

If you want to get the air temps up I would use a small heat bulb or ceramic emitter and put both on your thermostat if it has the capacity. Make sure that both are at the same end of the tank so the snake still has a cool and hot area.
 
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Thanks for the reply hockeystop! Actually I'm not so worried about the ambient tems as I am about the temp of the substrate. I took all of my temp readings with the themometers probe at various levels of substrate. I think I may have fixed the problem though. I got another UTH with another thermostat and put it under the cool end of the tank. I set the temp on that end to be about 75 degrees and this seems to have helped raise the temp of the substrate at both ends without me having to raise the temp at the warm end to levels that will burn my snake if he burrows. I also moved the tank to the bedroom, which stays slightly warmer than the living room, so the ambient temp is now about 68-70 instead of 66-68. :)
 
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