Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm having trouble heating my corn. For some reason, the temp in her tank drops below 70 at night. During the day I control her temp with a basking lamp, but I'm afraid to leave it on all the time, because it gets really hot, so it seems like it might be a fire hazard. Also, I was told that the light should be off at night so they get a sense of night and day. I could solve that with the black lightbulb I bought, but again - paranoia over the fire hazard possibility. So, I started looking into under tank heaters. Problem is none of the ones I've seen have thermostats on them, and they don't have any controls so I could raise or lower the temp as needed. We just started a cold snap here, and I'm afraid that if this goes on any longer she'll get sick. So far I've just been turning the heat way up in that room, but that's going to show on my electric bill. Can someone please tell me how to raise and lower the temp with one of these heaters?

We keep our house fairly cool in the winter (64 degrees) and have never had a problem with my snakes being too cool. If you place the undertank heater at one end of your set-up, the snake can thermoregulate anywhere it wants. The heat is always on but there are plenty of cooler areas in the tank. I've often been suprised at how far away from the heat they sometimes get. Another good idea is to have a hide that spans most of the tank. This way the snake can find the right temprature and will also feel secure in the hide. If you have 2 hides, one on the warm side and one on the cool side, the snake may not find a comfortable temprature. Temps in the middle of your set-up may be closer to what your snake needs.
I keep an eye on my snakes to see where they are comfortable. I figure that if they sped all there time at one end or the other then the tank is either too hot or too cold. For the most part, my snakes stay torward the middle of the tank or maybe slightly toward the heating pad.
I hope this helps.

Well, it does give me some perspective. The thing is that it's a hatchling in a ten gallon tank. Is that going to be a large enough area for her to self regulate?

There is plenty of room in a 10 gallon tank for your snake to thermoregulate. Just be sure to get the size heater for the 10 gal. and place it all the way to one side of the tank. My 10 gallon stays warm enough even without the addition of a heat lamp.Your snake should be able to find the temprature range it needs.

Thanks.

I have an UTH on 4 of my snake tanks with lights. The UTH are on 24/7. Provide air circulation under the tank (the heater comes with those little gel things to raise the tank a little). I have not had a problem with them at all. My tanks have air flow under the tanks since they are on metal shelving so the fire danger in low.
My lights are on the same side as the UTH so they can have a warm side and cool side. Lights are on timers also so they can have a day/night cycle. I use an incandecent 40 watt bulb on my corns and it keeps the temp in the low 80's during the day. When lights go out they still have the UTH for heat source.
Other folks use something called a retrostat (I think that is the name). I think you plug the UTH into that then you can adjust the temp.
Only thing about the UTH is if you peel them off the wires inside can be damaged and they are useless.

Ive recently installed another fire alarm over my tanks.I had a brand new uth with a rheostat go crazy and fry a male hypo.If i wasnt home I would have burnt us out.Anything that creates heat can burn up.That was my first one in 20 years of using them...Paul

Hate to hear about your accident, at least it wasn't as bad as it could have been. To warn others of another potencial problem, be very aware of the wiring for any thermostat system, espicially when you are doing home wiring. We heat our entire snake house and had a wall heater with a double thermostat system have an apparent back surge and fried the thermostat contacts in both units. We lost over 400 adults in the collection, due to the unit coming on and heating the snake house to over 120 degrees in the cages.

We had the unit serviced approx. two weeks before the accident. We subsequently learned that this can happen with any system. So we now have a fire and tempeture alert system that activates a beeper if the temps exceed pre-set range extremes. It happened three years ago and we are still trying to recover from the loss, some animals will never be able to be replaced and tghe mental anguish was horrible. As Paul said anything that heats can and does at times cause fires, which could destroy years of work as it did in our case. Be careful.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

Cherryville Farms

Hate to hear of that terrible event, John. I wish you luck and hope you have a full recovery. I have an alarm system in my Herp Room and am very aware of the potential of anything electrical going wrong. Everything is electric in our house and I'm really careful, even with overhead lamps. Of course, my numbers of snakes fit on only two racks. I cringe at some of the horror stories. Take care...TCox.

Yeah, always good to take precautions. I always close the door to my room when I leave the house, lest one of the cats come in, get curious, knock the lamp off of the tank, and cause a fire of some sort.
Awful to hear about the losses... I've just got the one corn so far, but I know it'd be very saddening to lose even her.