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Heating my BP, lamp, pad...??

M

mrsnake

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Hello,

I can't figure out the best way to heat my BP's tank, its small (10 gal) and the heat-pad I was recommended (small zoo med)seems to get way too hot a spot even with two mats on top of it, over 100 deg, I dont know if it can use a dimmer or not, I was told by a few people to use heat lamps instead, but don;t know which is better for night time between infrared or incandescent night bulbs. Does it matter? The pad seems nice idea to provide a heat spot for digesting, etc , but its way too hot isn't it?

I have read so many different views I am totally confused don't know which way to go.

thanks
 
I use snake racks, but I think it's the same issue either way. If I were you I would invest in a nice thermostat, like a Herpstat ND. It will regulate the temps perfectly, and when you and your collection decide to grow, it will grow with you. I understand sometimes money is tight, but if you choose to make this a serious hobby getting it right the first time can save you a lot of money in the long run.
 
edenspets said:
I use snake racks, but I think it's the same issue either way. If I were you I would invest in a nice thermostat, like a Herpstat ND. It will regulate the temps perfectly, and when you and your collection decide to grow, it will grow with you. I understand sometimes money is tight, but if you choose to make this a serious hobby getting it right the first time can save you a lot of money in the long run.
Click to expand...

:iagree:
 
ok, thanks

ok, thanks for the advice, I like it. makes sense to me.
So...

But...
then my question is this, if I were to get the thermostat and hook it up to the UTH, how would I regulate it? if I want the uth to heat the whole tank, wouldn't it have to get so hot that the snake could not come into contact with it?

If I were to use it to make the snake comfortable resting over it, wouldn't that temp be insufficient to then heat the rest of the tank? I am confused as to what temp to set it at so as not to burn the snake but to still be enough to heat the tank space sufficiently at the same time. how to acheive both?

And where to place the probe? in the hide? directly above the heater on the floor (so as to get a max temp)? or somewhere else strategically located in the tank? if so, then where?

And an owner recommended placing a uvb/a light over the tank anyway for indirect day-lighting, he thinks the animals would get low levels of sunlight even while in their hides during the day in nature, so I should recreate this in the tank even if the snake is hidden, some light would/shoiuld still be available to penetrate a bit. it might be beneficial and help regulate the snake's light cycles....any thoughts?

thanks again
 
mrsnake said:
ok, thanks for the advice, I like it. makes sense to me.
So...

But...
then my question is this, if I were to get the thermostat and hook it up to the UTH, how would I regulate it? if I want the uth to heat the whole tank, wouldn't it have to get so hot that the snake could not come into contact with it?

If I were to use it to make the snake comfortable resting over it, wouldn't that temp be insufficient to then heat the rest of the tank? I am confused as to what temp to set it at so as not to burn the snake but to still be enough to heat the tank space sufficiently at the same time. how to acheive both?

And where to place the probe? in the hide? directly above the heater on the floor (so as to get a max temp)? or somewhere else strategically located in the tank? if so, then where?

And an owner recommended placing a uvb/a light over the tank anyway for indirect day-lighting, he thinks the animals would get low levels of sunlight even while in their hides during the day in nature, so I should recreate this in the tank even if the snake is hidden, some light would/shoiuld still be available to penetrate a bit. it might be beneficial and help regulate the snake's light cycles....any thoughts?

thanks again
Click to expand...

Did you look at the information or pictures? The thermostat has numbers marking the different temps on a dial, a bit of fiddling would help you set the temp to where it needs to be and a thermometer would monitor those temps.

The whole tank isn't to be heated. There is supposed to be a "hot" and "cool" end so that the snake can thermoregulate its body temps. If you keep the whole tank heated, you are going to have problems with the snake and if it's hot enough, you will kill the snake.

Place the probe for the thermometer UNDER the tank on the hottest part of the UTH, this will keep the snake from dislodging it.

Ball pythons are night creatures, and their digestive systems are efficient enough to get what they need from their prey. The prey has to be well fed and healthy. Sunlight does nothing for the snake but make it seek someplace to hide.

Since you are saying it's in a tank (glass) the snake will be able to see when it's night and when it's daytime that way. He does not need "special" lighting to help him differentiate day from night.


Hope this helped.
 
What Deb said. :) You can have a light bulb during the day if you want (I did when I housed my female in a 40-gallon tank), but you definitely don't want any kind of light on at night.

However, if you use a bulb during the day, use a low-wattage incandescent or a tube fluorescent. You don't want a basking light or anything that will mess with the temps too much--that's what the UTH is for.
 
Thanks everyone.
I have decided to go with a Herpstat connected to a UTH for now, I'll keep the incandescent bulb I bought for backup if temps in the house get too low and I need more anbient heat, but I think I probably will be fine withe the high end UTH and letting temps fall off from there, I appreciate the feedback.
:thumbsup:
 
Also, you should provide the snake with two hides--one on the warm side and one on the cool side, so that the snake doesn't have to choose between security and preferred temp. ;)
 
Personally (this is what I would do) if all you are using is a tank, you should do several things. Have the UTH on the "cool" end of the tank under one of the hides. The UTH should be hooked to a thermostat if it gets too hot...In this instance it should only provide a warm area to keep the snake comfortable on this end...by no means should it be hot or used by itself to heat the whole tank...On the other end of the tank you can either use a heat bulb set on during the day to provide a basking area and to also raise the overall temp of the tank OR use a ceramic heat emitter which does not give off light...this can be used 24 hours and will provide steadier temps at night....I find this way to be the best when using a tank and not a rack...it allows for the best thermoregulation.
 
Thanks for that. I think I see your point....

This is becoming trickier than I thought:

I am experimenting with the UTH andthe Herpstat thermo and not getting results I am happy with so far. With the Herpstat set to 92-99, (probe taped to inside bottom of glass - and snake out of tank!) I am getting readings of 2-3 degrees lower on Zilla hygrp/thermo unit that I have also stuck to the bottom inside of the tank, I am not sure how/what accounts for the 2 or degree discprepancy in thermometrers taped to the same spot.

The bigger problem is this:

I have also placed a thermometer on top of 1/2" of aspen shavings - directly above the UTH - and its reading 10 degrees BELOW the the other two,so there is a 10 deg gradient just 1/2 inch away! The hide is a half-log type situated directly above the UTH too.

So now my issue seems to be, if I want to make the aspen area above the UTH warm, I need to set the Herpstat much hotter than 90, it would need to be set to 100 in order to get 90 on top of the aspen, but if he were to borrow into it or displace it, then he would be in contact with the glass that is heated to alomst 100, clearly too hot.

Thats not great for a "hotspot", and its doing nothing for the rest opf the tank, the abient temp is 72. I see your point about using it to set the lower temp and use a bulb for the higher temp but I really did like the idea of not needing a bulb.

Anybody here have new recomendations?

My apartment temp is controlled centrally, not by me, and the room temps vary, when its hot out it will be hot in here, when the temps outside drop they dont usually turn on the heat for a while, almost never in the summer.

So then I also wonder how ambient room tempos will affect the herpstat/uth function, will an 85 deg room make the uth much hotter at the same setting as a 65 deg room?

uh boy...
 
So now Im thinking of using a mat inside as substrate (that can't be moved or burrowed into like the aspen so I wont worry about him getting too clse to the glass) and then setting the herpstat to whatever it takes to raise the temp on the mat to 90. Then I'll spread aspen around outside the hide and under the cool hide, I guess if ambient room temp falls below 75 I'll have to use the lamp to bring things back up.

wish there was an easer way, not crazy about using the lamp.
 
i definatly would not put the heat pad inside, if it fails or t stat fails you will have a burned snake on your hands and they usually do not live from this. set heat pad under tank on t stat set at 90 degrees this will give the snake a warm spot to go to. also do not use aspen bedding either use newspaper or cypress mulch. news paper easier to clean but cypress gives you good humidity. the problem with aspen is that it can grow a type of mold that is deadly to snakes. Nerd has more on this. And because you are using a open type aquarium there is no way around using a heat lamp also. if you want to get away from this buy a plastic cage. reptile basics has nice products and they are reasonably priced.
 
Oh really! I did not know aspen was bad to use, will do. thanks

I was NOT saying I would put the UTH inside!

It is firmly glued to the bottom of the tank, I have the PROBE/THERMOMETERs on the inside of the glass, taped to the bottom directly above the UTH (which is on the outside) to get readings inside the glass above the pad.

The 10 degree deiscrepancy between the glass and the top of the bedding is what concerns me most, to get a decent hotspot on the bedding I ave to raise the temp too much on the pad, if the snakle should burrow down it would then get burned.

With a 90 deg setting on the Herpstat, I am getting 80 deg on the aspen/substrate, hardly a hotspot....
 
that is fine the aspen will get compressed and i am sure the snake will burrow to you are just giving them a temp gradiant and a place to go to digest a meal. aspen is fine as long as you do not get it wet and let it stay wet. i do not like it for balls because it does not tend to help with humidity and you will have shedding problems. i know its hard to just heat a single tank you could also accomplish it using a radiant heat panel.
 
It looks as though the temp. difference between the uth probe and the bedding probe has narrowed substaially as the ambient room temp has increased, so I am led to believe that cooler night time temps drew heat away from the pad and bedding and now that the room has warmed less heat is being siphoned off to the room/tank etc.
This is goos insofar as the uth and herpstat seem to be working as they should, now its a matter of what to do with day/night temp fluctuations, day-t0-day variance, etc.
Unfortunately I cant do the obvious, regulate my room temperature more closely, as it is centrally set by my landlord who does not even live here!
thanks for all the help so far
 
Some slight temp drops at night are OK, as this is typical in the wild. You just don't want a huge difference in daytime and nighttime temps. ;)
 
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