Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've just bought a corn snake. The instructions that came with the
vivarium regarding seting the temperatures says:

Setting Heat Mat (Night Time) Temperature
Important: always set temperature with spot bulb off.
Turn on heat mat and set thermostat on full (red light on).
When thermometer reaches temperature of between 83'F and 87'F turn
thermostat down just enough for the red light to go off. This should now
maintain correct temperature.

Setting Air (Day Time) Temperature.
Set air temperature with spot bulb on and thermometer on back wall. An
air temperature of between 82'F and 84'F needs to be achieved. If the
air temperature exceeds this then a lower wattage bulb is needed. If the
air temperature is below this then a higher wattage bulb is required.

Does all this make sense and sound right?

Also, I've put the spot bulb on a timer to come on at 8am and go off at
8pm - is 12 hours too long?

Thanks for your help!

This setup is actually too warm for a cornsnake. I suggest either just using the lamp and switching to a red heat lamp to acheive 82-84 deg on one side of the tank. Or, just use the heat pad set to 84 deg and no light.

If it was for a boa or python, then you would be good. For a cornsnake though, both heat sources are not generally not necessary.

I don't use lighting for my cornsnake and he's very healthy. I just have a heat mat.

You just said it sounds about right

Guess I'll see how the little felar gets on.

Argh! Its so confusing

Trouble with the heat pad is its on a thermostat which doesn't seem to take the heat mat above 80 degrees.

Currently, the temperature in the 3ft vivarium is 87 degrees. Thats with just the spot bulb heating it and the mat maintaining temperature.

It sounds right to me. You may want to get a guard cage to go over the light. You may want to have the lighting mimic your present daylight hours.

So it does sound right then? Yes I do have a guard cage over the spot bulb. When I get hold of a digi cam I'll post a couple of pictures too.

Is it normal for the snake to hide away in its hide for long periods? Bearing in mind I only got him yesterday. Guess he could just be settling in maybe?

Thanks for your help.

I don't like using spot lights in small vivariums because they tend to demolish the idea of a temperature gradient from one end to the other and they make the whole tank's ambient temperature the same. The recommended high temperature is 80-85 degrees and the coolest end 70 degrees.

For some reason my earlier posts don't seem to be in chronological order, so it seemed like I was agreeing with things that were wrong!

Your tank heating only needs minor adjustment.

Oh, and snakes like hiding!