Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a young ball python... recived him this past July... he currently is housed in a sterlite container... i have two UTH on the bottom of each side of container... i also have each one plugged into its own dimmer... i use aspen bedding... i have a hide on each side ontop of the UTH.... I also have two digital probes on each side... the warm end i let get between 86-90 and the cool end between 80-85...the problem is outside of the hides the ambient temp in the enclosure is around 71-73 degrees..this is ontop of the substrate outside the hide.... this makes sense as the room temp in my bedroom is around 70 degrees.. i have no other place to house him/her...im not sure how to raise this? i have zero air holes ontop of the lid...i have a few small air holes on the sides of the tub. the trouble is, if i raise the temp of the uth then it raises inside the hide way to much....the hides are fine, its just only 71 degrees outside the hides..i have no idea why the sterlite does not hold in the heat... i do have a 10 gallon tank that i can transfer him to and xfer both uth to that and then use a heat lamp on low to raise it a bit, but i rather stick with the sterlite...are these temps ok? he is not a big eater.. he eats a F/T about once every two weeks or so.... wont accept any more often.... and in fact he just shed for the very first time this weekend... he is young but i have had him almost 4 months... any ideas are great.....and no, i have no way to raise the temps in the bedroom higher then 70... should i look to rehome him? if i cant provide what he needs i would have to do that so he doesnt suffer..please help, thanks... by the way, he is out of hides all the time crusing around....maybe the 71 degrees doesnt bother him.....

I would bet your heat is being trapped under the Aspen. if you need better heat transfer thin it way out. most important thing here is gradient. 90 on the hot spot and 79-80 should be fine. don't use the heat lamp, you'll cook him. Kurt d.

probably get rid of aspen all together and go with newspaper

Go Tigers!