Posted by:
HerpZillA
at Mon Feb 4 18:36:50 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by HerpZillA ]
OK, I feel so stupid for missing this because this type of topic is more up my alley than snake care.
I have a few tubs on a wire rack with flex watt for heat and a biostat for control. The probe from the biostat is in a mock up tub with aspen, and the probe is under the aspen on the warm end over the heat tape.
The issue I found is I use various amounts of aspen from cage to cage. I rarely use hides, just deep aspen. Well, in short, the aspen or I imagine most substrates you can build up become an insulating device in the cage. This drops the ambient temps a lot. And if the snake is not wanting to borough down, he's not in the temps he should be.
I've been watching my temps very closely for a few reasons. But I have found that the biostat I once thought was good, actually SUCKS. It may have a 4 degree swing in temps on and off. Sounds ok, but so does my room as it is on electric heat on a wall stat. That stat also have a 4-5 degree swing. As I re-adjust my wall stat for my liking I have to adjust my rack. One would think you shouldn't, but on my tubs I do.
So, between on and off temps of my biostat, changes in room temps, and using deep bedding on the same system I use light bedding, I see way to much temperature variations.
Most of this I knew to some degree, but with the aspen depth issue, I see a need to re-analyze my setup. And it's not just a simple stat change. Cage setups may be more important in many setups.
Just something I came across a month or so ago. One of the threads talked about bedding insulating the heat, so I thought I'd bring it up as I never so a post on it before.
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Thanks for reading.
Big Tom
www.HerpZillA.com
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 heat issue with UTH and aspen bedding - HerpZillA, Mon Feb 4 18:36:50 2008 
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