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If you had to choose, overheat or chill?

C

corsara

New member
I need some advice. Last night we bought a beautiful youngster (pictures here: http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1525774&postcount=21), and she's our first snake.

We set up the 10 gallon aquarium with a 8" x 8" heat pad (Exo Terra Heat Wave Desert), which covered exactly one half of the place (we stuck it on the bottom on the outside directly to the glass). So, we left the heated pad on all night long through the morning today. All this time our little friend (called her Pretzel) was buried in the substrate, we didn't even really know where exactly she is hiding...

Then I come to work this morning and I spent a little time reading, and was shocked to learn that we might have cooked her! I immediately called my wife to unplug the heated pad, which she did. For 5 hours since then, the snake didn't indicate any movement or anything (according to my wife), so I just asked her to open the top and very gently try to find the snake with a stick and see if she'll move. These 5 minutes expecting my wife's call with the result were a nightmare.

Luckily, the snake is alive. It might have been sleeping all this time? Wife said she's moving around now and exploring.

I guess we dodged the bullet, huh? Now the question:

I'm working long hours tonight and wife can't go to the reptile shop, so it will be no earlier than tomorrow morning when I'll be able to buy a thermostat and digital thermometers with probes (one for the cold side and one for the center of the heated pad). Until then, should I leave the heated pad unplugged? Am I right to assume that high heat would be worse than coldness until tomorrow? Just for reference, the ambient room temperature throughout the house is a steady 23 c (73 f).

Thanks in advance!
 
The ambient temp will be fine until you can get a thermostat, as long as you don't feed your new snake until then.
 
If the house is at a steady 73 currently there shouldn't be any problem overnight without the UTH. The ideal temp is 70-90 but they can survive overnight at cooler temps easy enough. You'll be fine until you can get a thermostat to regulate the UTH.
 
Everything I've heard and read has said that it's better for your snake to be a little cool than a little hot.

If you check out the other two threads going on that are about UTHs, you can find out a lot of info. I asked some pretty basic questions and the sages of the forum helped me out.
 
Agree with all of the advice. Wait a week, feed her, wait at least 2 days before trying to handle. Remember that corns are nocturnal so no/little activity during the daytime hours is normal, as well she is settling in (hence why a week is given).

Hope that makes sense, 24 hours no sleep and still counting XD
 
Update:

I bought the Zoo Med Reptitemp 500r, as well as a separate digital thermometer with a sensor probe. Placed both sensors in the middle of the heat pad directly on the glass under the substrate. After a couple of experiments, the thermostat is turning on when temperature drops down to 77.0 f (25.5 c) as indicated on the thermometer, and then turns off once temperature is 84 f (29 c). This is quite a wide range, isn't it? Should I bump it up a little bit?
 
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