Uh oh...

[Torch]

My A/c just took a crap on me. It's pressing 87-90 in the house and about 85 in the snakes tank on both sides...so much for "hot and cold side" eh?

That going to cause him issues? I turned the heat lamp off, but not much else i can think of doing short of ice-cubing the tank.

 

[DAND]

Try using a fan to circulate the air some. You could always put a chunk of ice in front of the fan and make yourself a swamp cooler.

 

[Azruial]

What temperature is it outside? You wouldn't want to have the snake at or above 90 for too long... Do you have any neighbors who you could contact just in case? Other than that, yeah, get a chunk of ice and blow the fan past it. Good luck.... and MAN that must be uncomfortable to be stuck in a 90 degree house!

Just an afterthought, if you could get/borrow a one-room window AC unit, that would be a good option to keep the snake comfortable...

 

[moth]

i know how you feel its only in the mid 70s here but the house is in the mid 80s inside had to turn off the lamp and one heat element under tank for mine ..it was in the mid to high 80s in the tank around 2:00 pm but now it is about just right again mid 70s on the cool side low 80s hot side.. good luck with yours.....

 

[celbii]

It's summer, theres not much i can do for my snake when it reachs 90 in there , he lives with it fine, yours will too, its not going to kill him.

 

[peep_827]

I'm not 100% sure . . .

but I think 90 degrees short term won't hurt the snake, my hot side's got up to that before and no harm done, but I do have a gradient. I also have read somewhere (no experience with this myself) that if they get too hot they will go into their water dish to cool off. Maybe someone else can offer thoughts on this? Mine have never done that as far as I know. So if you keep a dish of tepid water in there that your snake can get into that might do the trick if it truly gets too hot. Just my opinion, I think you should keep a real close eye on it and have a possible back-up plan if it gets too hot. Good luck!

 

[Duff]

Maybe it's just me, but I think people sometimes get a little too paranoid about everything with their corns. I can understand it, though, wanting to make sure the snake is healthy and comfortable. Better safe than sorry is a good way to go. I'm not trying to start anything, so don't everyone start going off on me. But if you think about it, considering their natural habitat, 90s weather isn't exactly foreign to them. Just my thoughts on the matter

 

[Azruial]

Your right, corns are much less sensitive to a bit of temperature fluctuation than a lot of other snakes, that's one reason why they are so great for beginners However, like you said, better safe than sorry. I have never gone for the argument "In the wild..." because there is so much that is different for a captive snake. For one thing, a 25 gallon tank is a lot more limited than a natural environment as far as options for stuff like cooling, so when it gets too hot or something, you do need to take extra care to make sure that your snake has everything it needs to survive. It's a lot of responsibility when you pluck an animal out of the wild and put it into a cage or viv, so although the snake can probably take it, you really need to be extra vigilant when something happens like this.
Just my 2 cents, if that comes across harshly, it wasn't supposed to, I have nothing but the best intentions.

 

[peep_827]

I thought the same thing . . .

but I read something the other day that in the wild if it gets too hot a corn will burrow down into a cool, shady spot. Now, how hot does it have to get for them to do that? I don't know. I guess the experts have found captive corns do best around 80 (+/-), with or without a gradient. I'm sure occasional fluctuations will do no harm, they aren't tropical.

I agree that sometimes we get a bit paranoid, but I generally prefer to err on the side of caution and try to make common sense decisions about these things. And it's nice to find sometimes that what you were worried about is nothing, OR that there is something you need to do differently.

 

[Azruial]

but I read something the other day that in the wild if it gets too hot a corn will burrow down into a cool, shady spot.

My reaction:
Where does a snake find a cool shady spot to burrow in a tank that is 90 degrees throughout? The whole environment is being controlled by you. In a viv, if it's 90 degrees in the room, the tank will eventually become 90 degrees, no cool shady spots, no escape...
Just to argue the other side, you know... no hard feelings, I don't mean to sound angry, because I'm not.

 

[peep_827]

My reaction:
Where does a snake find a cool shady spot to burrow in a tank that is 90 degrees throughout? The whole environment is being controlled by you. In a viv, if it's 90 degrees in the room, the tank will eventually become 90 degrees, no cool shady spots, no escape...
Just to argue the other side, you know... no hard feelings, I don't mean to sound angry, because I'm not.

Right . . . "in the wild" - not in a tank. I went on to say that I don't know at what temp a corn will burrow into the soil to cool off, I don't know if they'd go at 90 degrees or not. My warm side has got to 90 degrees, but with a gradient of 10 to 15 degrees, so it wasn't a crisis. Basically I was addressing the comment on people being too paranoid about their corns considering what they'd face in the wild . . . and I was trying to explain what a corn would do in the wild if it got too hot. Perhaps I was not clear about that? I apologize if that's the case

 

[kathylove]

From 1985 - 1996, my colubrids were housed in a room with lots of ventilation and long overhangs to shade the windows, and roof insulation, but no a/c. Here is SW Florida, it gets in the low 90s most days in the summer. I found that if it stayed much above 90 for very long, it was more difficult for them to digest meals, so I had to feed small meals in the summer. But with clean water, they would spend the hottest part of the day cooling off in their water dish. Thick layers of substrate (wood shavings or mulch) take quite a while to heat up and cool off, so burrowing into the mulch would keep them cooler than the room air for much of the day as well.

Now that I have a/c, I try to keep it in the low to mid eighties in the summer, but if it goes to the high eighties, I don't worry - they do fine. But I do try to avoid hitting 90 if possible, and avoid feeding large meals when it will be hot.

 

[Rosebear]

What a timely topic! I have to say I truly appreciate the info as it gets upwards of 85+ in my house in the summer. I guess Legoless gets a clip on fan near his viv to keep a little cooler. He tends to the cool side most times unless he's just eaten anyway.