I got a Dumeril yesterday. I have had a ball python and Central American Boa in the past. I always used newspaper as a substrate before, but I noticed she had trouble with her last shed because there is still some skin there.I wanted to make sure the humidity was up and that doesn't work with newspaper in Las Vegas.

I went to the reptile specialty shop here and the guy recommended the cypress mulch. It works great... for humidity. It stays at 60% just being in there. The problem is the heat. With my reptitherm UTH the temperature does not move at all. It is 78 in my apartment, it reads 78 in the tank. There is a warm spot in the substrate, but the heat does not transfer up at all. I keep hearing people talk about turning theirs down so I bought a thermostat, and instead I am not making near enough heat. It is a 40 gallon tank, and it has the corresponding 40 gallon heater on it. It all works great, if you put your hand on the glass, it is hot. It works.

Is this just the substrate eating up all that heat? Should I add another uth? I don't want to go the route of heat lamp. Is there a special place I should take the temp from? My thermometer is about halfway up the glass on the hot side.

Because it a screen top I placed a sheet over it to hold heat in. That just raises the humidity too high and it barely moved the temp anyway. I am really baffled here because nobody else seems to have this problem.

The snake seems ok because she goes back and forth from hot to cold burying herself on either side.

I have about 1.5 to 2 inches of substrate in there.

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