Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, I have done some research on this, and maybe I'm just not looking at the right places, or maybe I got my cage set up wrong and got confused. Here goes.
The way I have my tank set up is, I have a UTH, and two heat lamps. One is a red light, the other is a darker infrared light.
Now I do live in a cold state, and it does get kind of cold out side, and the tank is close to a outside window. Normaly (I just checked the temps) The side with the hide box (Where the UTH is) is at 78F and the side with the infrared light is 80F. (The daytime temps normaly don't get hotter than 85F). Now I bought this from a guy who said to run the red light at day and the infrared light at night. My question is am I keeping the tank to warm and is this the wrong kind of set up? The reason I ask is I'm lookin to set up another cage and I want to make sure I do it right.
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1.0 Pastel, soon to be more. *fingers crossed*

Honestly, that's on the cool side. I would put the heat lights on the same side as the UTH - you want to create a hot side and a cool side, so that the snake can pick the preferred temps. With the heat light and heat pad, the snake should be set.

You can probably stick with just one of the lights (Infrared would be my choice).

Good luck!

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

So still turn off the heat lamp at night or run them both 24/7?
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1.0 Pastel, soon to be more. *fingers crossed*

If I were you I'd ditch the lights altogether you should be able to warm your cage properly with Under Tank Heating. I'm also assuming since you said Tank and Lights you probably have a screen top - which would mean you are on the road to a humidity issue, bad sheds, etc.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to describe your set up and then we can go from there.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Yes, it is a screen top, the humid. is a little harder to keep up to where it should be, but I have part of the lid covered with damp rags and I mist in the tank when it needs it.
Its a about a 54L 18W 18H tank (I think that makes it a 20 or 30 gal tank. The substrate is the Zoo Med Repti-bark fir bark stuff. I'm not sure on how big the UTH is, or how many watts the lights are, but like I said the tank gets up to 85ish day time and then 78-80 night.
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1.0 Pastel, soon to be more. *fingers crossed*

...really poorly typed. Sorry. I was fighting with my bag of bark trying to see what brand it was and I wasn't paying attention to what I was typing.
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1.0 Pastel, soon to be more. *fingers crossed*

OK - lets start with the screen top - you should definately cover it wood or plexiglass will work fine - I like plexi better because it's easier to clean and wont warp or harbor bacteria like wood - but the covered top will hold in a lot of the heat and humidity that are currently escaping your tank as well as cut down on drafts. Go ahead and cover the whole thing you can drill a couple of small air holes or leave an inch of the top uncovered - but it's not going to be air tight and you don't need a lot of air exchange.

You can ditch the lights in their entirety - you don't really need them balls don't bask and with the properly covered top you should see a difference in heat retention.

If you need to you can insulate the back and sides of the tank - either by buying the variety of insulating items offered specifically for tanks - either the foam inserts/fake rock walls, or the stuff that comes in rolls that you apply to the back of the tank - or you can just use standard styrofoam on the outside. This will also go a long way to maintaining heat inside of your tank.

If you need to you can add additional heat tape, UTHs or rope to the underside of the tank or to the back of it to help with ambient temps. These won't dry out the tank as much as lights and are more cost/energy efficient than the lights.

Also be sure to pick up a temp gun and proper digital thermometer hygrometer for measuring your temps and humidity.

I think that's about it!

Good luck.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Thank you! I do have a nice little temp gun that is very handy to have around, but I'm still stuck with one of the little dial things for hymid. I will just have to try and get that replaced with something better.
Thanks again
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1.0 Pastel, soon to be more. *fingers crossed*