UTH Changes?

[MerlinsPop]

I'm I the only person to notice that in the last week, we've seen three different people with UTH's, probably zoo-med, that register lower than 80 without regulation?

Could it be that they've changed them somehow?

 

[Maize411]

it could be that..or it could be that they don't have a probe thermometer over the uth..:shrugs:

 

[Wylie]

Or how 'bout a Zoo Med UTH that makes the temp fluctuate like crazy, all the way down to 75 degrees up to... currently 90 degrees!! Just 2 1/2 hours ago it was only 76 degrees! I started a thread on this in another section. This may well drive me nuts, I mean if it's going to fluctuate that wildly, then how am I gonna be able to sleep at night wondering if the warm side has gotten out of control, mainly too hot, cause I've never seen the cold side go below 70 degrees so far. Grrrrrr. I'm getting frustrated.

 

[Topazfyre]

I just bought a new UTH by ZooMed, and I can tell you that it is perfectly capable of reaching far above 100*F- there has been no change to my knowledge. I think it's far more likely that...

1. People are taking the temps correctly somehow.
2. They chose an opportunistic moment to take the temps.
3. Their thermometer is dead.
4. They're reading Celsius.
5. They have the UTH on the side of their viv.
6. The viv is not directly on the UTH, as in the viv has been raised up or there has been a semi-conductor of heat put between the viv and the heater.
7. Their UTH is dead.

ZooMed doesn't just make these UTH's for corns, but also other reptiles that may require higher temps than what the corns need, so it wouldn't make any sense for them to start making the max temps lower from a business standpoint.

Remember people- just because your temp reading is within the allowable range does not mean that it will stay there at all hours of the day, or that a thermostat is unneccessary. As I said in another thread, a ZooMed 500R is only around $30, $20 at an expo, and it gets the job done fine. The worst it can do is to make sure that your temperature stay where they are supposed to stay. And, quite frankly, if you don't have $20 for a thermostat or just don't care enough about it, you shouldn't have a cornsnake to begin with. I know that that is a bold statement, and probably the crudest I've yet to say on this forum, but it is something that I feel strongly about.

 

[Wylie]

I just unplugged my Zoo Med UTH, to let it cool some, as the temp is now reading 90.5 degrees and I don't have it located on the center of the pad. So now finally it does seem to be heating very well but now I'm having a problem with the temps fluctuating so wildly in such a short period of time and yeah, now the issue of it getting too hot has come up, 2 days after I put the Zoo Med UTH in place. I've been researching thermostats and I think I'm going to order a Zoo Med 500R online for about $20 and give that a try. Hopefully that will work well enough to avoid my having to turn around and buy a more expensive one. I certainly don't want to go to bed at night worried about it getting too hot!

 

[Topazfyre]

I just unplugged my Zoo Med UTH, to let it cool some, as the temp is now reading 90.5 degrees and I don't have it located on the center of the pad. So now finally it does seem to be heating very well but now I'm having a problem with the temps fluctuating so wildly in such a short period of time and yeah, now the issue of it getting too hot has come up, 2 days after I put the Zoo Med UTH in place. I've been researching thermostats and I think I'm going to order a Zoo Med 500R online for about $20 and give that a try. Hopefully that will work well enough to avoid my having to turn around and buy a more expensive one. I certainly don't want to go to bed at night worried about it getting too hot!

Some people don't like it, complaining that it has too large of a temperature range. For example, mine keep the range between about 81.5 to 86.7. However, it does do the job pretty reliably once you have it properly calibrated, and you don't have to worry about your corn's vivs getting to 125* at night- better sleep. I'd recommend having it, even if you decide to get a better one later (like the $120 HerpStat) seeing that it can work fine as a back-up. :shrugs:

 

[Wylie]

Some people don't like it, complaining that it has too large of a temperature range. For example, mine keep the range between about 81.5 to 86.7. However, it does do the job pretty reliably once you have it properly calibrated, and you don't have to worry about your corn's vivs getting to 125* at night- better sleep. I'd recommend having it, even if you decide to get a better one later (like the $120 HerpStat) seeing that it can work fine as a back-up. :shrugs:

Sounds good enough for me! Thanks for the info.

 

[Topazfyre]

Sounds good enough for me! Thanks for the info.

Glad I could be of help.

 

[laura92405]

I just unplugged my Zoo Med UTH, to let it cool some, as the temp is now reading 90.5 degrees and I don't have it located on the center of the pad. So now finally it does seem to be heating very well but now I'm having a problem with the temps fluctuating so wildly in such a short period of time and yeah, now the issue of it getting too hot has come up, 2 days after I put the Zoo Med UTH in place. I've been researching thermostats and I think I'm going to order a Zoo Med 500R online for about $20 and give that a try. Hopefully that will work well enough to avoid my having to turn around and buy a more expensive one. I certainly don't want to go to bed at night worried about it getting too hot!

I also just bought a zoo med 500R because my uth was reading up to 95 degrees...I"m just not sure what heating range to set it on between the low to high because i dont fully understand what the "low" temp consists of compared to the "high" range.

 

[Topazfyre]

I also just bought a zoo med 500R because my uth was reading up to 95 degrees...I"m just not sure what heating range to set it on between the low to high because i dont fully understand what the "low" temp consists of compared to the "high" range.

A good average temp to aim for the hot side is around 85*, and preferably with the max temp no higher than 88* and the minimum temp (on the hot side) no lower than 80*. Try to get the thermostat to turn on (indicated by the green light) when the hot side reaches 82* and off at 86*. This will make the 'high' temp around 87.2* and the 'low' at 81.6* (can you tell I moniter my temps obsessively?). Once you have found that temp range, I would take a black pen and mark where that point is on the dial. This way if it gets hit or something, you don't have to recalibrate it all over again.

 

[MerlinsPop]

A nice thing about getting a 500R is what you can do with it once you've decided you don't like the variation it gives (although I personally don't think there's anything wrong with a 5 degree spread).

The 500R is an on/off unit. If it reads too hot, it shuts down. Simple. So, say you decided to buy a nice progressive unit. Here's what you do... take the 500R and calibrate it to shut down at say, 88 or 90 degrees. Then, plug the new progressive unit into the 500R and set it to keep a nice, steady 84* (or whatever). What you now have is a back up in case the progressive unit were to fail (rare, but still).