Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Zoo-med UTH's are probably the most unsafe UTH that was ever marketed towards reptiles. So i was switching the cages around today (Blood went into leo cage, leo into ball python cage, ball python into blood cage) and as i was removing the substrate i saw this HOLE in the bottom of my Blood (the new cage, this was my leos cage) cage. I then felt the UTH with my hand and OUCH, it was HOT. So i put the probe of one of my therms on it and after around 1 hour the temp was 146.8. Now to me, i couldn't believe it so i checked with another therm and that one read 146.5 after 1 hour (the original was at 150 at this time). That IS NOT directly on the heating element, it was through 8 pages (4 full pages folded) of newspaper. Now i couldn't believe how high it was. So then i put the actual cage on top of it and measured the temp inside of the cage (with no substrate). The cage was a rubbermaid made of 1/4" plastic, the temp was 135.5. That is through newspaper then through the cage. I could only imagine what the temp would be if it was through a glass cage. If you are using a zoo-med UTH please get rid of it for a better brand. I could use that UTH for basking spots in a MONITOR cage, that is how hot it gets.
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 tiger crested gecko (peachs)
0.1 Red blood python (Rhianon)
0.0.1 ball pythons (FELIX!!!!!)
2.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, Bear, and Tony)

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I have had 2 zoo meds, one was a large one and it cracked the bottom of my 45, luckily my BP didn't get burned. Now i have another smaller one and have it on a plastic sterilite cover, coveredd by a towel under the tank and just went to go feel it when i came upon this post and it's luke warm. I think they can't take beding and short out and get hotter than norm in some cases, but i cover all my UTH thnks for the input though.
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My roomates are2 boas, 4 corns,Rotti,3cats and snake food AKA the food chain.