Help! UTH/Thermostat not giving me the proper Temp
 

I have an UTH/Thermostat combo attached to the bottom of a 20L glass tank for my Female adult Hog Island cross boa. I have the probe inside the tank in the substrate by the UTH. I have the Thermostat set at 85F, but it's reading 77F and I'm getting the same reading when I use the Temperature gun. Am I doing something wrong here ?

Your probe should be directly on the heat mat, in between it and the glass. Then you raise the temp and check it with the heat gun until you get the desired temp that you need.

I just finished watching 2 Channels on YouTube where the Reptile Breeders and store owners covered this topic and indicated very clearly that you should not attach the probe to the Heat mat and attach it to the bottom of the tank. Somewhere there has to be a consensus on what the correct procedure is for using an UTH and Thermostat.

So if your snake knocks the probe loose and the temp tries to reach the desired temp it'll never happen and then you risk burning your snake or your house. Please don't put the probe inside.

Hmmmm...Ok. I just contacted the owner of Reptile Rapture who is the place that posted the video on YouTube indicating that the probe should not be attached to the UTH. This is all just very very confusing when you get multiple opinions on how to set up a tank.

YouTube is a terrible source of reptile information in general. The format (top-down) isn't right for sharing information, the motivation of "content creators" is suspect, the comment section is mostly Russian trolls, and so on.

I agree with Jason. When the snake knocks the probe loose, the heat mat will run flat out until you get a burned snake (or one that won't go in the too-hot hide and can't thermoregulate properly) or at worst a cracked tank or a fire.

The probe goes on top of the mat (I tape them on with aluminum HVAC tape so that the probe touches two of the Flexwatt bars, in case one of them runs a little cool). You set the thermostat at whatever, and then after it warms up use the IR gun to take take the temp inside the warm hide to see what thermostat reading calibrates to the hide box temp you want. In my tubs, the mat temp roughly equals the hide temp. In a fish tank, the mat is likely going to run quite a bit hotter than the hide temp; keeping the ambient temp decently high will help this somewhat.

After you get all that dialed in, keep an eye on the snake and see that it spends some time on the hot spot and some time off it. The snake will tell you if you have the hide too warm (snake is usually off it) or too cool (snake is usually on it).

YouTube is a terrible source for reptile information??? The majority of the videos are all done by professional Reptile owners/breeders. Put YouTube aside, am I actually supposed to believe that these Reptile owners/breeders are total idiots who don't know what they're talking about? Wow. The Thermostat I have came with a Suction cup attached to the probe, so what is the suction cup for and where is it supposed to be used? Under the tank?

A vast majority of reptile breeders don't use tanks, they use rack systems and the probe goes on the heat tape/mat, not in the tub. The safest way is to have the probe directly on the mat and not inside. The temp will be different but then you know that it can't get moved.

That tape is great stuff and doesn't move easily.

Ok, where exactly does the probe get placed on my 8x12 UTH ? I don't know if the UTH will now be able to be removed from the glass bottom in order to attach the probe to it.