Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Im setting up a 20 long for a king snake. (leaning towards Mexican Black) So far it consists of shredded aspen bedding, the obvious warm and cool hides and water bowl, I have a branch leaning at about 45 degrees up to a basking spot, and a few fake plants just for looks. My heating consists of a heat mat (11x11) which covers about 35% of the tank floor. I have the heat mat controlled by a thermostat set at 90 and the probe sandwiched between the heat mat and the glass, then i have the thermometer probe right on top of the glass and under the substrate in the warm hide. Even with the heat mat set to and staying at 90 degrees, I'm only reading about 79 degrees just on the other side of the glass in the warm hide. Is it normal to have a 11 degree difference with he only barrier being a thin piece of glass? Obviously the temp will be even a few degrees cooler on top of the substrate, so what temp should i aim for on the glass in the warm hide? How high can i set the heat mat and not have to worry about cracking the glass etc? 95, 100?

Btw, i also have a CHE set to 88 degrees directly over the heat mat, thats where the basking spot that i mentioned earlier is located.

Even with everything stated above, my cool side seems to stay at around 68 degrees. Is this ok? I know ideally it would be 70-75. Does it seem like I'm on an ok track? Any tips for me? thanks for your time and help!

Kingsnakes are subterranean by nature, meaning they do not typically climb branches to bask. They get their warmth from the warm ground or ground cover warmed by the sun. They go deeper underground to cool off and avoid hot, dry conditions.

It does not matter much if the air temp is 68 deg. The snake's belly is on the cage floor, so the snake's internal temperature is more affected by the cage floor temperature. During cool weather the CHE can help, but the screen top lets out most of that heat.

A better approach, and simpler (simpler is better usually) is to get rid of the overhead heater and cover 80-90% of the cage top with something like cardboard covered in aluminum foil or even cheap towels and only use the undertank heater. During Summer, you may want to remove the cover, as you will not need to keep heat in very much at that time.

Glass conducts heat really well, aspen does not. I would set the controller for the heat mat to be in the range of 82-84 deg. Above the warm glass, put a shoebox-sized plastic container or a clean Cool-Whip container with a cutout in the lid. Fill the container loosely with damp sphagnum moss. That can be the warm hide. Let it dry out before moistening it again. Kings love hides like this. You can put substrate all around the warm hide and in the rest of the cage, but let the warm hide touch the glass or at least be close to it. Don't set it 2 inches up on top of aspen, that is not useful, and the glass under the aspen just gets hot while the top of the aspen stays much cooler as you have seen.

Depending on the ambient air temps and humidity in the room, you may have to adjust the heat mat temp setpoint a bit, but 84 is generally high enough for kings to digest, and 90 is usually too high if left on all of the time. Cool air temps in the 60's are just fine for kings, especially this time of year. It is the belly heat that matters. Humid hides as described maintain gentle heat and does not dry out the snakes. Overhead heat does dry out snakes (when using screen tops).

Some folks put down some ceramic or porcelin tile over the heated floor spot to give a little more "heat mass". This is a really good idea to do, because glass can get hot.

I don't use glass tanks anymore, but when I did, I would use a few small dabs of water-based kitchen/bath adhesive/sealant to hold the tile down on the glass. Easy to remove if you ever need to but holds nicely.

Here is another option you can do. I have done this, and it works!

Fill the 20 gal tank with aspen so that the level is just about 6-7 inches from the top. You can use the cheap aspen for rodents for most of that, then use the nice snake aspen for the last 2 inches or so.

Now turn off your undertank heater and use the CHE only. Place some sheets of newspaper or packing paper (rolls sold in Home Depot, inexpensive brown newspaper-like paper) on top of the aspen below the CHE. The snake will hide under the paper. You can also partially bury a plastic box or Cool Whip container with sphagnum moss under the paper.

CHE's are great when the snake can be under something and still heat up.