Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been having trouble maintaining a decent heat gradient. The best I can seem to do is a 5 degree difference. Current temps are 88 and 83. The snake has been spending all it's time on the cool side so I decided to check the surface temps with a IR thermometer. It was 102 directly above the UTH. Is this normal? I would think not but I'm not an expert. I'm hoping someone else is.

The setup is a 20L glass cage with a zoo-med UTH. Any reply would be appreciated.

>>The setup is a 20L glass cage with a zoo-med UTH. Any reply would be appreciated.

What kind of substrate are you using? Do you have a good layer on top of the UTH? You're aiming for surface temps anyway. I think you want to shoot for about 90 for the warm side.

Also, you do have thermostato for the UTH right?
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Rob Talkington

Thanks for the reply. Substrate is newspaper. I don't have a thermostat yet (ordered a zoomed repti temp online and still waiting for it). I'm using a dimmer switch at the moment. Was working great for a few days. Will try putting the temp sensors between the layers of paper and see if that gives a better reading.

FYI, your ambient readings with the digital will always be different than surface temps. Since the temps indicated are supposed to be surface temps and not ambient I have both an IR and a digital w/probe. I lay the probe on the newspaper and get a reading. Then I take my IR and see what the surface temps are. If the surface temps are too low I raise the thermostat until the surface temps are where I want them. At that time I take a reading off the digital w/probe and make a note of it.

This gives me a fairly good indication of the surface temps without actuall having to IR them all the time. I can glance at the digital and see if there's any temp change. When I first started doing this the air temps fluctuated at a fairly consistent rate to the surface temps. I still check my surface temps now and then but being able to glance at the digital is much easier.

I've not read that anyone does it like this but it seems to work fine with my setup so I guess I'd say maybe give it a shot and see how it does with your setup.

Oh yeah, a dimmer switch is fine if your room temps don't fluctuate a bunch. Plus, it's cheaper than a "reptile" rheostat, which is basically the same thing as a dimmer switch with a $10.00 label attached to it. But I do like thermostats much better only because I don't have to adjust them if the room temp goes up or down.

Just keep muckin' with it and you'll get the temps where you want them. When I first got my BP I spent hours getting the temps right.

Good luck!!
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Rob Talkington

Thank you for the advice. I got the thermostat today and it turned out to be a rheostat so I'll be sending that back. God I love mail order.

>>Thank you for the advice. I got the thermostat today and it turned out to be a rheostat so I'll be sending that back. God I love mail order.
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Rob Talkington