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Good day all,

I will explain set up and then ask question.

*4 level C-serpents V-15/V-18 rack
*3in 10w belly heat flex watt
*1st Herpstat 1-probe taped on flexwatt directly
*2nd Herpstat -probe inside empty tub taped to hot spot for accurate hot spot temp.
*Temp gun
*new substrate Aspen Sani-chips; old substrate Aspen shavings

Alright now for the question... Sorry I dont know how to explaining it without being complicated.

I am confused about hot spot temp. I have set up my second t-stat taped inside an empty tub to read hot spot surface. Since I have done this my hot spot has hit the correct temp where I should be for my hognose snakes 90 degrees (92 at most). Now after i switched over to sani chips, the substrate has actually stayed in place over hot spot without bunching up like aspen shavings. So when I did have aspen shaving I would use my temp gun to get reading of each tub and got same temp as my t-stat. Now that I have made the switch to sani chips I have used temp gun to read hot spot surface under substrate and have gotten temps of 96 degrees. So at this point i decided to to ad substrate(s-chips) over probe to compare reading and it is accurate 96 degrees. Am I doing something wrong? Should I bring down t-stat to get a 90 degree hot spot with substrate over probe or should i remove substrate and get reading from that? And just to be clear the t-stat inside tube is not connected to my flex watt. I'm using a separate herpstat to control temps. Once again sorry for my explanation.

Thanks,
Dave

Sani-Chip insulates more. Temps under it tend to be slightly higher than temps under aspen. Aspen lets more heated air flow up.

So, the controller connected to the flexwatt has a probe right on the flexwatt with nothing above it to trap heat. That point is 90 deg. That is what the controller is using as feedback.

The probe you are using to simply measure temps inside the box under the substrate is in an area that traps heat. Temps will be higher at that point.

So you want a controller that reads temps at one spot but magically adjusts for an unrelated probe at another spot under different conditions? lol, sorry for poking fun, but that is what you are trying to do.

With aspen shavings, the two temps were closer. If you want the substrate to be what you set on the controller, then you need to put the flexwatt on a controller with the probe under the substrate. Or use aspen, which doesn't trap as much heat so the probe on the flexwatt does not experience a vastly different condition from the probe in the substrate.

Since hogs love to burrow, my advice is to use aspen shavings. The big shavings sold at Petco for a fraction of the price of the ZooMed aspen works great. My hogs loved that stuff in a rack, I put it at around 3-4 inches deep.