Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a animal plastics rack 1756 10 tubs and a helix dbs 1000 running at 90 my room is cold about 52 degrees and when i checked my tubs there only about 79-82 on the hot side? i dont understand if i have my helix set at 90 shouldnt my tubs be close to that? is it that my room is cold and thats affecting the tub temps? i just moved my collection to this new location so im finding that i cant keep my tub temps where they need to be? also my probe is placed over the side wall heat cable with the tip of the prove passed the heat by a hair or two. thanks for any help!

Just a couple questions. Do you have belly heat or back heat? Does your tub have the probe groove built in? I've got several AP racks with belly heat, using the built in probe groove and the same Helix Therm and I set the Helix around 93-95 depending on the rack and the hot spot gets about 90.

Chris

im using back and belly heat. im not sure about the probe question? what do you mean about the grove? thanks for your reply!

The thermostat only knows what the probe tells it -- if the probe is placed close to the heat source then it will read hotter than what the tubs really are (especially in a cold room).

You need to play around with it to find a place were it will heat the tubs efficiently but not get the "hot spot" too hot for the snakes. You might also want to think about heating the room a bit so your heat sources aren't competing against the cold.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

Lots of different ways to accomplish this, but here's what works for me. I have ARS racks for my ball pythons. There are 30 slots in each rack. I choose one cage somewhere in the middle and attach the thermocouple/probe to a heavy water bowl and set it in the back of the cage on same substrate as other cages. This allows me to control the temp at the same spot that a snake will be basking. That gives up one space for a snake, but good temp control really helps to eliminate one variable. Good temp control will help to get some of the difficult feeders become good feeders. I also use some back-up method to check temperatures like a remote thermometer probe or gun to double check. Every once in a while the temp probe will become dislodged; nothing is fool proof. Good luck, tom harbin reptiles

No thermostat can increase the temperature in a room by 40 degrees. You NEED to get the ambient air temperature of the room up to at LEAST 70 before you can expect your Helix to come anywhere near your desired temps.
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