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Having some heating issues....

Optreptiles

Optreptiles

New member
Hey everyone, today I am having some relatively bad heating issues with my cornsnakes. I just recently got a snake rack (which has the heat tape on the back, rather than belly heat), and I am keeping my snakes in 28qt bins. I got a thermostat for it online (I am not sure what kind exactly, but it is hydrofarm brand). But I have been having trouble keeping the warm side where I want it to be, for example, I'll set to 84 F, and it only gets to be around 81 F. So I have been keeping a small duraflame space heater in my room to try to balance out the temps. I was keeping the heater relatively high (it is not digital, so I don't know the exact temperature setting) and i was leaving it on constantly (this proved to be a big mistake). So I went to check on my cornsnakes a little while ago and I thought it felt a little hot in my room. So I got out my thermometer, checked the cool side and it was 82 F! I immediately turned the heater off, took my snakes out of their boxes (they felt a little bit warm to the touch) and put them in snake bags on the coolest part of my room. I then put my fan in the doorway to try to get the heat out of my room as soon as possible, at the same time waving the heat out of the bins and the snake rack with a piece of cardboard. I checked on them about 20 minutes ago and the cool side was about 79.8 F. I am getting ready to go check on them right now. Do you guys think I did the right thing? I couldn't really think of anything else I could do to cool them off quickly. Needless to say, I won't be using that space heater again unless it get freezing in my room.
 
If the cool side is 82 I would turn off the space heater. (And never leave it on unattanded! ) Just stick with the heat you have now ..at 81 ... Adjust the probe a little, this might help.
 
The space heater is NOT SAFE. You can burn your house down.

Where do you have the thermostat probe? I would recommend 1/2 to 1" away from the heat tape, at the center level of the rack.

A maximum high temp of 81F is safe. But don't pay attention to what the thermostat is set for- pay attention to what your probed thermometer at the hot part of the bin reads.

And a proportional thermostat like a Herpstat will be much less of a headache.
 
The thermostat probe is roughly 1 inch away from the heat tape. As for the space heater, it is a lot safer than it sounds, as it has a switch on the bottom so that if you knock it over (or even bump it) it kicks off. But I definitely won't be leaving the heater unattended anymore. I just checked on them again and the cool side is at a reasonable 75 F. I will continue to keep a close eye on them for the rest of the day.
 
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