I just got my new Animal Plastics T3 cage in black with sliding glass doors. I put it all together, hooked up all my heating and just put my 6-month old Ball in there two days ago. Anyhow here is what I have and my setup. (sorry about the long post, but I needed to be descriptive)
Heating:
Right Half of the cage (Hot side) = 11" Flexwatt hooked up to a Johnson Controls thermostat. Johnson thermostat probe is sitting ONTOP of the aspen shavings that I am using as substrate in the cage. I have about 1.5 - 2 inches of aspen substrate lining the bottom of the cage. I have the thermostat set at 94 degrees and this side stays between 91-95 degrees at the surface of the aspen shavings. If you go about six inches up higher in the air, the temp drops to about 75-80.
Left half of the cage (cool side) = 150 watt ceramic heat emitter sitting ONTOP of the cage in a screen cutout hooked up to another Johnson Controls thermostat. Johnson thermstat probe is sitting ONTOP of the aspen shavings directly below the center of the CHE. I have the thermostat set at 84 degrees and this side stays between 79-84 degrees at the surface of the aspen shavings. If you go about six inches up higher in the air, the temp drops to the 78-80 degree mark. Obviously the CHE warms the ambient air temp more than the flexwatt does.
I have a hide on each side of the cage. I have been noticing that my Ball is hanging out on the cool side of his cage, and sometimes is laying up against the sliding glass doors in the front where the temp is the lowest. His favorite hide is on the right side (flexwatt side, hot side) of the cage and he is not using it, probably because he doesn't want to be on the hot side for some reason.
So I have some questions..
1.) Is this normal for the Ball to be staying on the cool side of the cage?
2.) Should I switch the hot side and cool side, meaning have the cool side be the flexwatt side and have the hot side be the CHE side? I didn't want to keep the CHE running that much because it dries out the air, so that's why I made the hot side the flexwatt side. But I am not sure about the whole basking spot, if it's needed, etc..
3.) Do BP's usually like to sleep and stay in their hides on the HOT side or the COOL side more often? I am just not sure if it's comfortable for them to be sitting on a 94 degree surface of aspen all day inside a hide (where the hide is probably actually making it hotter than 94 degrees inside)
any other heating setup recommendations I am all ears for. I have been experiementing with the heat setup and don't know what is the best setup for me. Just to note why I am using BOTH flexwatt and an overhead CHE, I keep my ambient room temps in the 62-67 degree range in the winter (save on those heat bills). So using ONLY flexwatt would only keep one side of the cage warm and do little for my ambient air temps INSIDE the cage. The other side of the cage without flexwatt would fall into the low to mid 70s. So by using a CHE on the other side, it heats the overall ambient air temp inside the cage and also makes that side of the cage warmer being my room temps are so low in the winter.
Thanks guys, I know you all are much more knowledgable with this stuff so that's why I asked here!
oh BTW.. I at first had the Johnson thermostat heat probe taped DIRECTLY to the flexwatt itself, I found this proved to be very annoying because I needed to set the thermostat for like 120 degrees, and it was not making a steady temp INSIDE the cage as the thermostat would keep going on and off every like 20-30 seconds because the flexwatt heats up and cools down so quickly. So I found it much more reliable and steady to put the temp probe INSIDE the cage sitting ONTOP of the aspen shavings to get a REAL temp read of what the snake is feeling and also set the temp for the heating right there accurately. (I just drilled a small hole in the back of the cage to get the temp probe inside, then just ran and taped the wire down the side of the inside of the cage, along the bottom and then left a few inches loose at the end where the probe is so I could bring the probe up through the aspen and lay it ontop of the substrate).
