• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

How large should UTH be?

stingsmom

stingsmom

New member
I'm in the final phases of setup for new baby corn (he should be arriving Tuesday! :cheers: ). I had originally purchased a Herp Haven plastic terrarium, but I was pretty concerned about one of the lid openings which wouldn't seem to take too much force to pop open. Since an escaped snake will not set well with dear hubby, I switched to a glass terrarium with a sliding lid. In the process, I boosted the size to a 20 gallon long - why invest in an enclosure he will outgrow in a year or so?

I plan to attach my UTH to a ceramic tile, and regulate with a dimmer switch or thermostat, already having discovered that the unregulated pad creates a temp of 98F or more under the hide log.

At the moment, I'm wondering if my puny little 4x7" heat pad is adequate. Does it matter how large of an area is heated, as long as the snake has a choice? As he matures, I can see that he might not be able to get his whole body onto the warmest spot, but I can't see this as an issue with a hatchling. With the money spent on the larger cage and still needing to get a dimmer or thermostat, I'd like to avoid replacing the heat mat right now.

BTW, can I assume that if the product is labeled as a thermostat that it is regulated by a temperature probe, regardless of whether it has a temp display or not?

Thanks in advance! :wavey:
 
Well, as a general rule the UTH should cover about a third to a half of the floor of the viv. And pretty much all thermostats have a temperature probe, otherwise they wouldn't do a very good job of keeping the temperature right :) Good luck with the new snake...what's the morph, if I may ask? And how old is it? I know how exciting it is to get your first snake, having just got mine myself.
 
We're getting a hatchling Okeetee corn from South Mountain Reptiles. I think it will be really cool to watch the colors change as he grows (for the kids, of course :) ).
 
Yea, sure it's for the kids... :grin01: I bet you'll spend a lot of time watching him/her as well. Okeetees are lovely, one of my favorite morphs. Once again, best of luck. And may I be the first to say...welcome to the addiction ;)
 
What you have now will be fine for a while. When the corn is an adult, you will want to get a full sized one. As Paradox said, it should cover about 1/3 of the tank bottom.
 
Thanks!

BeckyG said:
What you have now will be fine for a while. When the corn is an adult, you will want to get a full sized one. As Paradox said, it should cover about 1/3 of the tank bottom.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Becky.

I thought it would be OK for a little while - just to avoid hubby getting too freaked about $$ spent on supplies for a slithery new pet (which is TOTALLY different from $$$$$$ spent on 10 y/o's racing kart!)

In terms of priorities, I figured that the larger pad can wait a bit, whereas the thermostat CAN'T.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top