I've just purchased a PE-2 temperature gun from Pro Exotics, and I did a temperature survey of my aquarium tonight. I took most of these shots from a distance of 2 to 6 inches from the surface being measured. With the PE-2's 8:1 ratio, I'm measuring quarter to three-quarter inch average surfaces. These temperatures are taken when the room temperature is a fairly steady 73 degrees F.
I have a UTH that runs constantly. I have another UTH against the left wall of the aquarium and a clamp lamp with 60 Watt black light bulb over this same warm side of the aquarium. The clamp lamp and side-mounted UTH are on a thermostat. The thermostat had kept them off for a couple of hours prior to the survey, but they came on as I began the survey.
I hadn't misted the aquarium in about 24 hours. Immediately after misting, temperatures would be much lower. Temperatures remain low for a couple of hours after misting.
Another point is that the temperature drops into the 70's within about an inch of the walls around the entire perimeter. There is no "warm area" within an inch of the walls.
The front center tile hide is shown as being 88 degrees inside the hide. I had noticed when I first added the hide that she used it a bit, but she suddenly stopped. I also noticed that she had excavated a back entrance to the hide. For some reason, a curiosity led me to try a digital thermometer probe in the crack between the tile and the log. When I looked after 20 minutes, I found that the temperature was 119 degrees F.
I immediately lifted the tile to determine how the temperature became so high back there. What happened is that as my ball python crawled through her back entrance, she pushed the cedar mulch so that the glass floor was exposed in a few small spots. I added more mulch to cover the glass again.
The digital thermometer still shows the crevice area between the log and tile to be about 101 degrees (but dropping for some reason). The temperature gun doesn't show any one spot beyond the high 90's.
She has her favorite hide, and I think the temperature in there is around 80, but I didn't want to shoot where she was and didn't want to disturb her any more than I already was. The hollow log is in the low 80's. The cave is in the low 80's. The cold side tile hide is around 70.
With these temperatures, I'm tempted to let this one hide remain around 100 unless someone persuades me that she could get hurt there. While snakes don't feel the heat well enough to protect themselves from burns, she stopped using that hide when it was too warm. She has plenty of other hides, and if my home lost power while I was away, a too hot hide might stay just right until the power returned.
A long term solution may be to add more bedding under this hide to provide a little more insulation. I'm starting to think that one of the trickiest parts of maintaining temperatures is getting just the right depth of bedding. I may also put a bottom layer of newspaper under the bedding in a few spots where she crawls. The newspaper would protect her from the glass, and she wouldn't be able to push it aside as she crawls. Putting it under the bedding would keep the natural look, and I still like giving her natural bedding in which to "dig" a little.
Another long term solution might be separating the tile from the log by a little bit to let more heat escape the tile. The under surface of the tile was 83 degrees according to the temperature gun, but I suspect that the tile holds warm air pretty effectively.
As always, I'd like to hear good comments.
Thanks,
Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.
