Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just moved Annika into her new 40 gal tank.
Here it is from the front:

And here is an angle showing the webcam location:

I have a ReptTherm UTH in the back left corner. I have a piece of Zilla terrarium liner and about an inch of aspen shavings covering the heated area. The large rock-looking hide is over that. Inside the hide is currently 84F. The cool side is at 75F. The temps are still normalizing, so I am keeping a close eye on them.

The little rubber feet for the enclosure that came with the heater to life it a bit did pretty much nothing, so I cut some of the cardboard that was wrapped around the enclosure when I got it and folded it over a few times to make 4 little lifts for each corner of the tank. The heater cord is not being pinched and the heater is clear of the shelf the tank is resting on.

I think this will work pretty well. I might add a branch in the middle for climbing at some point. I also have plans for a more sophisticated temperature monitoring system, but that will require some free time that I don't have right now (my last job was programming microcontrollers for agricultural monitoring and controlling equipment - so I have some ideas...).

The webcam is viewable at http://sirjorj.dyndns.org:44444
Feel free to check it out, but don't keep it open for too long - it kinda kills my upstream bandwidth!

Thanks for the input on helping me plan this out!

jorj

That looks great!. Is she keeping small/moderate meals down well now?,..if so, that's great too. Just try to keep in mind, when she does get back on a bigger meal regimen, please give her meals that aren't as big as those in the one video and pic, those were friggin gigantic!. There really isn't a need for meals that huge, as it can only cause big problems. I'm sure you'll agree that you don't need any more problems after that last episode..LOL!

Anyway,..I'm very glad to see things are much better now, and I think she'll do very well in the new setup!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

A few days a ago she ate a mouse. I have about 40 mice in my freezer (hooray for rodentpro.com) so her meals for a while will be 2 or 3 of those at a time.

On a side note, i was out with some friends this evening and I found an open WiFi access point with my iPod Touch. I checked in on Annika only to find a dark screen. I then realized that going to a heating pad instead of a heat lamp tends to make her hard to see! I honestly never thought of that before!

jorj

One suggestion, if you aren't already doing it. Measure the temp in the hide right down on the glass, under the aspen, because snakes often move the aspen and end up directly on the glass. It will be hotter there than up on top of the aspen.

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Kent

Very nice! I like 40 gal tanks because you can realy make a naturalistic setup.

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No, we're never gonna quit,Ain't nothin' wrong with it,Just actin' like we're animals - Nickelback, Animals

Right at the glass it gets up to 95F. That is why i covered the heated part with terrarium liner and put about an inch of aspen on it. Right now the rheostat is as low as it will go and the thermometer in the hide is at 85.

jorj

Sounds good. I use Ultratherm heat mats, and Alife rheostats. I can turn the heat down as far as I want. Right now on the glass my two snake cages are at 85. The cool ends are room temp which is about 76 right now. I have been very satisfied with these products.

Here are my two last December, and last month.

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Kent

I just placed an order for an Alife thermostat. The one I have is a piece of crap. At the lowest setting, I have 2 layers of terrarium liner and about 1.5 inches of aspen and in the hide it is still in the 85-90 range. It doesnt feel that hot at all in there, but I'm not chancing it.

FWIW, I saw Annika gaping briefly yesterday so the temps are going up again! She is at least eating, so I'm thinking if I raise the temps, she can probably fight this on her own. Otherwise, its back to the vet for more antibiotics!

jorj